


He Who Fights Monsters

by Anonymous



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Friends, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SHIELD Agent James Wesley, Tags May Change, Undercover, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6414505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wesley figures it out in between Fisk’s threats, and finally convinces himself to believe it in between punches.</p><p>The vigilante is Matthew Murdock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Coming forward with a slightly more polished version of an old WIP kink meme fill. A fill for [this](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1742.html?thread=3970254#cmt3970254) undercover!Wesley prompt to be exact. I hit a wall with the story almost a year ago, but now season 2 of Daredevil has rekindled my interest and the plot bunnies are leaping forward again. Taking responsibility for this lonely fill is a way of hopefully reminding me to go through with writing more of this story. 
> 
> However, at this stage I can make no promises for when and if a new chapter will appear, so please be aware you'll be going into a fic that might not be finished anytime soon, if at all. The original plan was also for this to become a Matt/Wesley story, though now I'm not sure if that plan will come to fruition. So please be forewarned, and the tags may be subject to change. Also, due to the time it was written, this story will only be season 1 compliant.
> 
> Also, dear the sweet kind anons who supported this originally on daredevilkink, thank you so much for your incredible words and comments, and especially to that single anon who left such long and wonderful messages on the final chapters. Thank you.
> 
> For new readers, please enjoy. All mistakes remain mine.

Wesley figures it out in between Fisk’s threats, and finally convinces himself to believe it in between punches.  
  
The vigilante is Matthew Murdock.  
  
From the moment the man in the mask had begun to speak, Wesley could feel something tickling his memory. The voice had a unique timbre to it, a specific rhythm and intonation to the speech he knew he had heard somewhere before. He cycled back through his memory, paying far less attention than he should have to the mental state of his employer. Wesley was good at this, he was trained for this, recognizing faces and voices were part of what kept deep cover agents alive, and he’d survived too many missions to fail here and now.  
  
“You killed her just to get my attention?“  
  
And then it clicked.  
  
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, may I please have your attention?”  
  
It can’t, but it has to be him. With every new sentence that is exchanged between the Vigilante and Fisk, Wesley finds himself more and more sure that it’s Murdock’s voice he is hearing. Is it possible that the vigilante’s real world persona was a blind defense attorney? Matt Murdock certainly has the bleeding heart to justify this sort of behavior, but the vigilante’s combat skills are far beyond the capabilities of a blind man. 

Yet then, his thoughts turn. Isn’t it telling, that the man’s mask only covers the top half of his face? What sort of fighter would willingly handicap themselves by making it next to impossible to see their surroundings? Especially when they’re fighting at night? If the vigilante is blind then there is no way he’ll be able to hide the fact when facing an opponent, not unless he covers his eyes the exact way this 'Devil of Hell's Kitchen' has chosen to. 

Wesley watches from the sidelines as the vigilante groans and collapses to the floor, helpless in the face of Fisk’s violence. He tries to catch a glimpse of the man’s face, but only the vigilante’s back is to him as he struggles to get back on his feet.  
  
It’s not impossible. Matthew Murdock might have some sort of superhuman skill, the exact sort of gift that has earned many a flag on SHIELD’s index, and makes possible flying Gods with magic hammers and men who turns into giants when they get angry. Wesley has seen far too many unexplained things in his career to dismiss anything as impossible.  
  
“Wesley.”  
  
Fisk’s summons pull him from his thoughts, and he obediently loads and raises the gun hanging from his hand. For a second, he imagines turning it on Fisk. But that is the least practical solution to his current problem, especially when Francis is still standing on guard at his side.  
  
Wesley looks at the bloody and broken mess that is Matthew Murdock, regretting the fact that he now has to destroy what could have been his best chance at bringing an end to this pretense. It is such a shame that he only figured out the truth minutes ago. If he’d known earlier, all of this could have been avoided, because he’d much rather aid the man who is trying to take down Fisk and his operation than murder him.  
  
He takes careful aim, and notes the way Murdock’s fingers curl around a broken stick of wood. _Clever man_ , he thinks with a grin he does not show.  
  
Murdock whirls back, flinging his only weapon at Wesley’s wrist with alarming precision. When Wesley’s gun goes off, the bullet hits nothing but concrete.  
  
The vigilante picks himself up from the floor and Wesley steps forward, aiming and firing with brisk movements. Somehow, not a single shot hits its mark, and the man throws himself out the window. Glass shatters, and there’s the sound of a distant splash. Wesley makes it to the window just in time to see the water darken and swirl around a human shape.  
  
Wesley’s always played at being an average shot, and Murdock is a very lucky person.  
  
But it really is easy to escape when the person shooting at you is missing on purpose.  
  
-  
  
He sends his men out to do their search. It’s an hour before he’s assured that the vigilante has successfully gotten away, and another thirty minutes before he gives up on supervision and leaves them with instructions to call him immediately if they find any trace of the man in the mask.  
  
With his business handled, Wesley sets off by himself toward the address of Matthew Murdock’s apartment. He leaves the radio off as he drives through Hell’s Kitchen’s streets, pondering the chances of finding the man alive in his own home. It’s entirely possible that he’s unconscious in a dumpster somewhere, or maybe found refuge with an ally, and this journey will be for nothing.  
  
The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, the papers call him. Matthew Murdock being the vigilante would explain his sudden one-eighty in deciding to accept the case Wesley had offered, especially after spending the entire meeting being about as friendly toward him as an unpleasantly belligerent cat. And it would also explain why the vigilante had decided to intervene to protect a juror, and why John Healy had been found dead barely 24 hours after his not guilty verdict was announced. It would also explain why the vigilante had grown so attached to that one tenement, and Mrs. Elena Cardenas in particular – out of the dozens of victims who had died as a result of Fisk’s (and admittedly, Wesley’s) machinations.  
  
The more Wesley thinks about Murdock’s connections to their problem situations, the more he is convinced that he guessed correctly.  
  
Hell’s Kitchen is only so big, and it doesn’t take long for Wesley to pull up outside Murdock’s apartment. Unsurprisingly, it is not one of the run down or shady apartment blocks that Fisk loathes and seeks to remove from the area with a burning passion, but a clean and well-kept building that undoubtedly houses the more respectable people working within the area. It is also far from what a fresh law school graduate from Murdock’s background should be able to afford. If Wesley didn’t know of the sizable fortune Jack Murdock had left for his son, he might have come to very different conclusions about Murdock and the nature of his practice.  
  
Wesley parks his car off the street and pulls a well-stocked bag of medical supplies from the trunk of the car. Considering the types of emergencies that are regular in their line of work, these bags are standard supply for each of their vehicles. The irony of using Fisk’s equipment to save one of his biggest enemies does not escape Wesley as he walks up the concrete steps and pushes through the unlocked building door.  
  
After a short ride in a rickety elevator and an even shorter walk down a hallway, he stands in front of Murdock’s front door. Wesley gives it three short sharp knocks before he points his ear forward, listening for any sound from within.

All he hears is silence, and Wesley looks down at the door handle, wondering if it's safe to pick the lock and chance the possible ambush waiting inside. But despite everything, the hallways is a public space, and the risk of someone turning up and catching him makes the option less appealing. He turns and goes for the roof access door.  
  
The door clicks shut behind him, and the sounds of the city hit him almost instantly alongside a blast of fresh air. Wesley nearly laughs when he sees the second entrance to the penthouse, and the dark stain of what might very well be blood near the handle. He crosses the roof quickly, and very nearly knocks a second time before he notices the door is already ajar.

Curious, Wesley runs his finger through one of the dark smudges and raises it into the light. Red. Wesley rubs his fingers, and the stickiness confirms that it most definitely is blood.  
  
The thrill of knowing he is right doesn’t quite counteract the knowledge of the danger he’s putting himself in. Wesley’s heart thumps a little faster in his chest, and he mentally steels himself for whatever comes next. The vigilante, he knows, has no reason to trust him, and if Wesley is being fair, will most likely attack him on sight. Even if he knows that the man is seriously wounded and most likely would lose any physical altercation he tries to start, it still doesn’t discount that Wesley has no idea what he is really walking into. If there is a gun pointed in this direction, it can very well be all over.  
  
But still, these are not the worst odds Wesley has ever faced. Taking a slow breath, he knocks lightly.

“Hello? Mr. Murdock?”  
  
He throws his voice forward, modulating his tone to his best version of polite ‘I mean no harm’.  
  
Again, he is greeted with silence, and Wesley carefully nudges the door open. He considers his gun, loaded with a fresh clip and still sitting in its holster, but decides against reaching for it. Going in waving a weapon is inviting trouble, especially if there’s more than one person inside.  
  
“I’m just here to talk,” he tries when the door fully opens, revealing the dark interior of the apartment below.  
  
Big industrial windows line the walls, letting in light from the street outside. Despite this, Wesley can only see as much as a couch and a pair of sofa chairs before the apartment fades into darkness. He cranes his ear, and again there is only silence. Cautious, Wesley starts forward, reaching for the railing as he begins to descend the stairs into the room proper.  
  
His hand touches something sticky again, and he doesn’t have to look to know it’s more blood. Wesley can almost imagine the way Matthew Murdock must have stumbled back into his home, barely able to stay upright with the pain of his injuries. It’s a miracle he even made it this far.  
  
“If I was looking to harm you, Mr. Murdock, I wouldn’t be standing here alone,” he says. It’s a risk, telling Murdock the fact, and though it’s up to the man whether he wants to believe him, Wesley hopes it will buy him at least enough trust to not be attacked at the first opportunity.  
  
The floorboards at the bottom of the stairs, Wesley notes, are broken. He stands on the last step, considering the weight and angle of the force that would have been involved, before carefully stepping around the damage. A sliding door, with its glass panels broken, lies against one wall, as does a white cane.  
  
Part of Murdock’s disguise? Or just to complete the image of a blind man?  
  
Wesley lets out a breath, reconsidering the wisdom of this decision. If Fisk finds out… no, there is no use second-guessing himself. He’s already here, and it’s far too late to back out of his decision.  
  
“Mr. Murdock?”  
  
Wesley’s fingers toy with the straps of the medical bag. By now, his eyes have better adjusted to the light, and he can make out the dark shape of the man hidden in the shadows on his left, can feel the weight of Murdock’s gaze upon him.  
  
“Look, I brought medical supplies,” Wesley says with a sigh, lifting the bag in demonstration, “would you like my help?”  
  
Murdock says nothing, even though his gaze behind that mask does not waver. Wesley can guess at what he must be thinking. The act is up, of course. If Wesley has told Fisk that means all of his friends are now in grave danger, his worst fear come true. Does he have the strength or the energy to get to them in time? No. But he can still try to call them and tell them to get out. That is, if he can even get to his phone, which is unlikely, at least not without somehow taking Wesley out first.  
  
Wesley stands there in increasing impatience, almost able to hear the useless train of thought currently working its way through Murdock’s brain. He purses his lips, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.  
  
“You can try to take me out, but I assure you that in your condition your chances of success are none,” he starts, anticipating Murdock’s questions, “I know you’re the vigilante. I recognised your voice and missed those shots on purpose to let you get away. Your friends are safe, and Fisk does not know who you are, yet. And the reason for that is because I need your help. Though right now, Mr. Murdock, it looks like you also need mine.”  
  
Wesley holds up the bag of medical supplies a second time, hoping to hammer home his point so they can stop wasting each other’s time. Murdock’s current injuries have to be putting him in immense pain, Wesley knows as much from experience. Murdock can’t be enjoying it.  
  
Yet, Murdock just stands there, staring, apparently unmoved.  
  
Wesley waits, and then sighs.  
  
“I have no plans to hurt you, Mr. Murdock,” he tries again, his voice resigned. “Please, let me help you.”  
  
This time, what Wesley says appears to reassure him, and Murdock visibly relaxes. Then, he starts to tip over.  
  
Wesley lunges forward, the bag falling to the floor with a thump as he barely catches Murdock in time. The man’s unexpected dead weight almost takes Wesley down with him. Then, he stands there, feeling absolutely absurd with Murdock unconscious weight on his shoulder, and regretting not changing out of his suit that is most likely ruined with all the blood now soaking into it.  
  
It strikes him that somewhere along the way, he’s become used to standing back while others take care of the dirty grunt work.  
  
Wesley takes a deep breath, and starts dragging Matthew Murdock, the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, towards the couch. 

Which is when someone starts banging on the front door.

“Matt!”  
  
The voice of Foggy Nelson rings outside the door, and Wesley closes his eyes, cursing silently. He is still stuck half way to the couch with an armful of unconscious vigilante.  
  
“Come on, Matt.”  
  
In his arms, Murdock begins to stir, and Wesley glances down in alarm, before glancing back at the door.  
  
“I need to talk to you, Matt.”  
  
Murdock twitches, and murmurs something incoherent. Wesley tightens his grip, gritting his teeth as he renews his efforts to move the man toward the couch. The sound of Murdock's body scraping against the floor feels too loud in the quiet room, and it forces Wesley to slow his movements so they won't be heard.  
  
“We need to keep going Matt.”  
  
Outside, Nelson’s voice had taken on a hoarse, teary edge, and Wesley doesn’t let himself think about what may have driven Murdock’s best friend to be so drunk as to and turn up at this apartment so late in the evening.  
  
“We gotta nail that bastard to the wall.”  
  
They’re almost at the couch, and if Wesley could just unload Murdock onto it…  
  
“We gotta make him pay… for Elena… for everything.”  
  
Wesley’s heart skips a beat, Nelson’s words stopping him in his tracks. He remembers making the necessary arrangements – the photo of the old lady he had prepared, along with the two thousand dollar offering of cash, the rotted teeth and stinking breath of the man who had grinned as he took the money. The words of the newspaper that announced her death…  
  
“Matt! Open the door!”  
  
This is a bad idea, Wesley recognises as much, even if Murdock believes Wesley is who he says he is, it still doesn’t take away any of Wesley’s sins. He had arranged for the death of Elena Cardenas and countless others, had personally saw to the destruction of lives and livelihoods, what makes him think that he will be treated with anything but disgust and hatred?  
  
The loud thumps sound again, and Murdock lurches from Wesley’s arms. Surprised, Wesley stumbles backwards and falls to the floor, losing his grip on Murdock who crumples to the ground without support.  
  
Outside the door, there is silence.  
  
There is no way Nelson wouldn’t have heard that. Wesley curses internally and stares as Murdock curls in on himself, moaning in pain.  
  
“Matt?”  
  
He turns to the door in an instant, desperately trying to think of a plan. There is no way he can open the door, one look at either one of them and Nelson will undoubtedly flip.  
  
“Are you okay in there? Matt?”  
  
Which means he needs to make Nelson willingly go away. Murdock wouldn’t have taken it with him to the warehouse. Where is Murdock keeping his cell phone?  
  
Nelson is now rattling the door handle, and Wesley wastes no time scrambling to his feet and scanning the room, it’s dark, but he can’t see anything remotely shaped like a phone.  
  
“Matt!”  
  
What he does see is the half open door to the roof, and his heart almost stops before he is dashing for the staircase, taking the steps two at a time. He makes it to the door just as the other door across the roof is twisting open, and Wesley yanks the door closed, holding it back at the last second so it clicks instead of slamming shut.  
  
He twists the lock just as approaching footsteps sound from beyond the door, and Wesley backs away with a silent prayer that Nelson won’t notice the blood on the handle. He hops over the railing to speed his way downstairs. They are both fucked unless Wesley finds a way to get Nelson out of here.  
  
As loud knocking commences, Wesley makes his way to the bedroom, heaving a sigh of relief when he sees the small black square of a cell phone resting on the bedside table. A second later Wesley has it in his hand, grinning in victory when he gets past the lock screen without trouble. He finds Nelson’s contact details and shoots off a text message.  
  
_Foggy where are you?_  
  
The loud banging stops abruptly, and Wesley holds his breath as he waits for the response. With slow, silent steps, he makes his way back to the living room, looking up at the roof access door, then back to the phone in his hand as it vibrates with a new message.  
  
_Matt?? In at ur laece I thnk someome broke in._  
  
Wesley lets out a soft breath, and glances over to Murdock, who is curled on the floor and seems to have passed out again.  
  
_Did someone break the locks? I’ll be right back_  
  
This time, the reply comes much faster.  
  
_No I heard a crsssj_  
  
_What?_  
  
_was a crash_  
  
Wesley leans against the wall, and slides down to the floor, exhausted. What would explain the sound Nelson heard? He thinks for a second, before an answer comes to him.  
  
_Oh that’s probably the fridge_  
  
_Fridge?_  
  
_Yeah it makes this big thunk sound when the cooling cycle stops. I think I need to get it fixed._  
  
_I though theres someome insifw_  
  
_The doors are still locked, right?_  
  
_Yeah_  
  
_Then it’s probably the fridge. Look, why don’t you go home, Foggy? We’ll talk tomorrow?_  
  
_Wher r u Matt_  
  
_I’m still at a bar, was going to ask you for drinks but I think I’ll go home soon_  
  
_Oho k, see you tomrw_  
  
With a sigh of relief, Wesley lets his hand fall into his lap, the phone in his hand finally silent.  
  
Across the room, Murdock hasn’t so much as stirred, and Wesley climbs back to his feet, tucking the phone into his pocket as he moves. He walks around the furniture, and crouches down next to Murdock, pressing a hand to his throat.  
  
Murdock’s pulse is weak, but it’s still there. Relieved, Wesley reaches to lift the man, and drags him for the final stretch onto the couch. Then, he goes to fetch the medical bag, reaching for the light switch as he passes.  
  
Click. Nothing happens.  
  
Disbelieving, Wesley looks up at the light and tries a few more times.  
  
Of course, a blind man wouldn’t have any use for light. The bulb is either non-existent or busted.  
  
Wesley sighs, and returns to the couch, staring down at the unconscious vigilante for a long moment before he goes to pull off the black hood.  
  
Matthew Murdock’s head lolls limply on the armrest, his face exactly as Wesley remembers, only with more grime and bloody cuts.  
  
“You’d better be grateful about this tomorrow morning.”


	2. Chapter 2

Matt wakes thinking he’s drowned, memories of violence, of flame, of ringing gunshots, burning human flesh, the shocking cold of fetid water all dancing at the edges of his consciousness. He wakes gasping for breath, swallowing back a whimper as almost every part of his body flares with pain.  
  
His senses reach out, painting an image of his surroundings with the coppery tang of blood mingled with disinfectant, coffee with milk and one sugar, the light rustle of a fine cotton shirt, the friction of skin against glass, the too familiar tick of an expensive watch…  
  
“Mr. Murdock, I see you’re back among the living.”  
  
The sound of a smooth voice has Matt’s heart seizing in fear. His memory returns in fragments, but he remembers with startling clarity his despair the moment he recognized that the man looming outside was the same man who had tried to kill him earlier that night. That moment of terror and self-loathing, knowing it was his own arrogance and stupidity that had led him to this point, and the fear that came with understanding he had doomed his friends and everyone he cares about.  
  
He would have ran, would have went for his phone, would have done something, if it hadn’t taken every ounce of his strength just to remain upright.  
  
Wesley, lounged on the sofa chair across from Matt, stands up and walks towards him. Matt tenses, relaxing slightly only when Wesley walks right past him to the kitchen counter.   
  
Gritting his teeth, Matt pushes himself upright, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain his body responds with in protest. The blanket covering him falls to his lap as he struggles, and after too long, he is finally sitting up, his breathing labored from what should have been an easy task.  
  
Wesley, who had simply stood back and watched while he fought his way up, tries to hand him some bitter smelling pills and a glass of water.  
  
Matt ignores the proffered hand, instinct telling him not to trust the man in front of him. Wesley should not be here, if Matt had just been more careful, if he’d just stopped and taken a moment to think before throwing himself into that warehouse, they would not be here.  
  
“It’s an analgesic,” Wesley says, “I’d take it if I were you.”  
  
Matt hesitates, mentally taking stock of his injuries, each bruise and hurt he can feel. Someone had patched him up during the night, and they’d been thorough about it, knew what they were doing. Yet Matt couldn’t find it in himself to feel grateful to the criminal standing in front of him.  
  
“If I had wanted to kill you, Mr. Mudock, I wouldn’t wait until morning to do it with pills."  
  
Matt almost wants to refuse out of pure spite before another spasm of pain changes his mind. He takes the glass of water and the pills when they’re pressed into his hand, but holds onto them, ignoring his burning thirst. The pills can still be laced with something, maybe to lower his inhibitions and make him more agreeable, open to interrogation. Or something worse.   
  
Wesley, who doesn't seem to actually care whether Matt actually takes the pills, settles back into the sofa. “Want some brunch?” Wesley says, annoyingly at home in Matt’s apartment.  
  
“You haven’t killed me,” Matt says instead of answering, his voice hoarse. He holds tightly onto the glass, thinking it can be a weapon if necessary.  
  
“No,” Wesley responds, his tone almost whimsical. “How much of last night do you remember?”  
  
“All of it,” Matt says and immediately realises that’s not true. “Most of it.”  
  
He wants to ask about Foggy, and his vague memories of his best friend’s screaming voice, but the idea of discussing anything about Foggy with this man feels wrong.   
  
“What about your best friend turning up outside the front door demanding to see you?”  
  
Matt tenses, raising his head to face Wesley, his ears tuned to the man’s heartbeat. There hadn’t been so much as a single flutter when he said those words.  
  
That’s what he was doing last night, Matt recalls, listening to Wesley’s heartbeat, waiting to hear a lie. But everything he said had rung true, his promises of meaning no harm, his need of help. It’s what had finally made him let down his guard.  
  
“I convinced him to leave, eventually,” Wesley says when Matt does not respond, and the tone of his voice suggests there is much more to the story.   
  
“If you hurt him…”  
  
“Though you might want to act like you were at a bar late last night, and… now you’re absent from work due to your hangover. Oh, and I also told him your fridge needs fixing.”

The threat Matt prepared dissolves into bewilderment with every word Wesley says. Matt opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “How did you…?”'  
  
“Texting,” Wesley says, shifting and fishing a cell phone – Matt’s cell phone - from his pants pocket. “Since Mr. Nelson didn’t immediately call the police I assume you do regularly make use of speech-to-text software.”  
  
Wesley places the phone on the armrest, and Matt’s breath hitches, realizing with cold certainty that the man would have gone through and made note of every one of his contacts, read every recorded conversation. Claire, Father Lantom, Wesley would know of every one of them, and if he leaves, he takes that knowledge with him.  
  
Something must show in his expression, because Wesley chuckles, his voice low.  
  
“And this is the part where I reiterate, again, that I have no intention of harming you or your friends.”  
  
Matt reminds himself to breathe, taking long, measured breaths to bring his racing heart back under control. He needs nothing more than to get rid of the man currently in front of him.  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
Matt mentally cycles through the possibilities, and not a single one is reassuring. Is it blackmail? Does he want to recruit him, perhaps? Make him Fisk’s new attack dog? Or does he want them to take on more cases, work defence for another one of Fisk’s enforcers?  
  
“What do you know about SHIELD, Mr Murdock?”  
  
The non-sequitur throws Matt completely, and he sits there, silent for a long time as he tries to come up with a reason for this question. His ears tell him Wesley’s heartbeat has quickened, that this question is serious, but Matt can’t figure out why.  
  
“It’s a now defunct global intelligence agency?” Matt says, deciding to play along, “They were infiltrated by HYDRA and nearly murdered millions of people before Captain America stopped them.”  
  
Wesley is silent, and, Matt notes with interest the sudden ragged edge of his breathing.  
  
“That’s right,” Wesley says eventually, his fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against his leg. He takes a quiet breath, and his only heartbeat only quickens instead of calms.

Matt frowns, more and more confused by the situation. “What has SHIELD got to do with any of this?”  
  
“Tell me, Mr. Murdock, how are you able to fight the way you do? You are a blind man, yet you have proven yourself more capable than a dozen trained, sighted men combined.”  
  
Matt’s frown deepens at the deflection. “The chemicals that made me blind also enhanced my other senses,” he says, knowing Wesley would likely have already figured out as much. ”I can hear more, feel more, changes in temperature, chemicals in the air, small vibrations, all of it gives me an impression of my surroundings. For example, I can tell that you dye your hair, but not all of it. Are you going grey, Mr. Wesley? You also favor artisan soap that smells of apple and citrus, though right now you mostly smell like blood and sweat. You like your coffee with milk and one sugar, and that’s your second cup today.”  
  
His words are met with silence, Wesley perhaps taken aback, or perhaps mulling over the implications. It’s useless holding onto this secret, that much Matt realises. His best bet is to shock him, impress him, perhaps throw him off balance and reassess his strategy and Matt’s usefulness.  
  
He doesn’t know how much it would turns things in his favor, but at this stage he’s willing to take whatever he can.  
  
“That’s impressive, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley says after some time, not trying to defend the list of habits Matt has picked up on. “But a blind man doesn’t pick up skills like yours without hands on teaching. Someone trained you to use those senses, didn’t they? Just as they trained you to fight. Would that be fair to assume?”  
  
Wesley is in his element, and Matt hears the way his heart finds a fast, even rhythm, overriding any of the panic and emotional weakness that had threatened him earlier.   
  
“You wouldn’t be wrong,” Matt says quietly, wondering if he’s just offered up Stick on a platter.  
  
“I thought so,” Wesley says, leaning back in his chair in thoughtful silence.   
  
Matt hates what is happening, being forced to reveal every one of his long kept secrets to a man who has threatened and killed countless innocent people for a ruthless man. But he knows just as well there is no point in denying what Wesley has already figured out to be true. Matt sits still, fighting against the exhaustion that has begun to tug at his consciousness. This conversation has already gone on for longer than his body is comfortable with, and shows no sign of ending soon. He tugs the hoodie tighter around himself, ignoring the weight of Wesley’s gaze.  
  
Matt’s opponent shifts, and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  
  
“You see, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley starts, “I have a few talents of my own. Languages and accents, for one, I’ve always been good at picking them up. Reading people too – body language, microexpressions, even the language you use, the way you phrase your sentences. I can tell what people are really thinking, what they don’t want you to know.”   
  
“Do you want me to find you a job?” Matt deadpans, ignoring the way his heart seizes at the thought that Wesley has read far more into him than Matt has realised.  
  
Wesley laughs, a short, bitter sound. “What I’m saying, Mr. Murdock, is that I was also trained, shaped to be the person I am today.”  
  
Matt remembers the topic Wesley had opened with, and his heart begins to sink.  
  
“The people who trained me? They picked up on my talents, helped me hone them, taught me to use my gifts as a weapon. Does that sound familiar?”  
  
Matt stays silent, waiting, dreading Wesley’s next words.   
  
“And their assignment of choice? Extended, deep cover missions.”  
  
Matt closes his eyes, not wanting to believe a single word that comes out of Wesley’s mouth. He does not want to feel any bit of sympathy for this man, even if Wesley’s heartbeat remains strong and steady with every revelation.  
  
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Murdock?” Wesley says, his voice firm and even. “I am… was… an agent of SHIELD.”  
  
And SHIELD’s collapse left him without an extraction plan.  
  
Matt doesn’t need to have listened to action movies and spy thrillers to understand the implications of his words. James Wesley, if he is who he says he is, is a field operative abandoned in the middle of a dangerous undercover mission. Yet instead of fleeing for his life he’d decided to retreat into his role. Now he probably feels trapped, with too many relationships and bad deeds tied to his identity to make a clean break.  
  
Worst of all, Matt knows, instinctively, that Wesley is not lying. His steady heartbeat alone promises enough. But more than that, there is nothing for Wesley to gain by making up a story like this. It can destroy him. Whatever potential allegiance or ceasefire he wants with the vigilante – with Matt - can’t possibly mean so much for him to arm Matt with a lie that will lead to Wesley’s death.  
  
“Even assuming that I believe you,” Matt says in the end, picking his words carefully. “What do you expect from me?”  
  
“Damage control,” Wesley says without missing a beat. “There’s only so much I can do to limit the amount of harm done to innocents, but outside interference from a known threat? That is beyond my control. I can give you names, times, locations, clues which will lead you right to Fisk’s illegal operations. If you disrupt enough of his activities, we will weaken him, and one day, when the time is right, he will land in jail where he belongs.”  
  
“Why not just go to the police?”  
  
Wesley’s eyebrows shoot up. “Do you have any idea how corrupt the police force is in this city?”  
  
“The Feds, then.”  
  
“And put myself in jail?”  
  
“If you work with them they’d give you immunity, it’s been done before.”  
  
“And how long do you think I’d last in witness protection?”  
  
“So this is about protecting yourself.”  
  
“Mr. Murdock,” Wesley says, leaning forward, the picture of calm. “I am not asking for your advice, I’m not asking for your friendship, I’m not even asking for your trust. What I am proposing here is a mutually beneficial alliance. One where you will get to continue to be the hero, save innocent lives, and undermine the operations of Wilson Fisk, all while having your secret identity being protected by his right-hand man. And one where I will be able to sleep better at night knowing that there is someone like you out there watching over the city and all its oblivious citizens, that the days of the despicable man I work for are now numbered.”  
  
Wesley pauses, then stands, reaching for his suit jacket. Matt says nothing as the man makes to leave, mulling over the words he’d just heard. If there was anything that is too good to be true, this would be it. Yet there are no signs to indicate that any of Wesley's words are a lie. He can't trust this man, Matt thinks. He won't.  
  
Footsteps against wooden floorboards, Wesley is almost at the door.  
  
“How do I know that you’re not just sending me to take out Fisk’s rivals? Or that you’re not sending me into a trap?”  
  
Wesley stops.  
  
“You don’t, Mr. Murdock. But for what it's worth, you have my word on the matter,” he says quietly, turning to look at Matt. Then, he hesitates. “Do we have a deal?”  
  
“I’ll think about it.”  
  
“That’s good enough for now,” Wesley says. “Get some rest, Mr. Murdock, I wouldn’t go out in your condition.”  
  
The front door clicks, and then he is gone.

Matt sits for a moment, overwhelmed by everything that has just happened in so short a time. Elena’s death, his sudden and violent determination to kill Fisk, the junkie, the warehouse, fleeing for his life, and now, Wesley, a man he loathes revealing to him a secret identity and offering him an allegiance.  
  
There is nothing he wants more in this moment than just to lay back down and sleep for a thousand years. But that’s not a luxury he can indulge in right now. Matt focuses at his phone, resting what seems like an impossible distance away.  
  
He looks down at the glass in his hand, and gulps down the water.  
  
Then, he drops the pills onto the floor, takes a deep breath, and leans forward.  
  
His knees immediately buckle, and he catches himself with his arms barely in time to save himself from flopping onto the ground. His muscles and injuries are screaming in protest, though he has no doubt that without the painkillers Wesley gave him, it would all be hurting a lot more.  
  
It’s not far, eight, ten feet at most.  
  
Slowly, he pushes himself forward, ignoring his body’s disapproval and progressing on sheer power of will. What feels like an hour later, he makes it to the sofa, and finds it’s still warm.  
  
Wesley did smell like blood, Matt’s blood, most likely. The idea that Wesley has spent all night in Matt’s apartment feels like a violation, and Matt wonders if the man had gone through more than just his phone. Did he find the hidden chest? The one hiding his father’s boxing robe? Just the thought of Wesley’s hands on the material has Matt feeling sick to his stomach.  
  
Reaching for his phone is much harder than it should be, but it’s not long before Matt has it back in his hand. He lets himself have a minute to breathe before he dials Foggy’s number. It barely rings before it is picked up.  
  
“Matt? I was getting worried, it’s past one o’clock, are you still coming in?”  
  
“Hey Foggy,” he says, clearing his throat when he hears how hoarse his voice is. “I think I’m going to take a sick day, I’m a little worse off than I thought.”  
  
“Do you want me to come over?” Foggy says, the worry in his voice instantly deepening.  
  
“No, no,” Matt says, “I’ll be okay tomorrow, I need to remember not to drink so much.”  
  
“Ha, tell me about it,” Foggy says with a laugh, “I didn’t even make it in until eleven, I wanted to die.”  
  
“You can always just go home,” Matt offers. Simply talking to Foggy has the power to make him feel better, Foggy’s warm enthusiasm a reminder that there are still parts of his life that is normal, safe from the mess and chaos that is the world of the vigilante.  
  
“And have Karen judge me? No thank you,” Foggy replies with exaggerated offence. “I am here to work, and we are going to get those bastards.”  
  
The reminder of Elena is like being doused with cold water. Matt knows, without question, that Wesley is the one responsible for her death. But if he agrees to work with him… he might be able to prevent another death like hers. That possibility alone makes Matt almost want to say yes to Wesley’s offer. But he can't trust Wesley. A SHIELD Agent? All of it sounds too ridiculous to be true, no matter what Wesley's biological signs indicated.  
  
“Yeah, we’ll get them Foggy,” he says, his voice cold. “They’ll pay for what everything they’ve done to these people, they’ll pay for Elena.”  
  
“Yeah,” Foggy murmurs, “We’ll make sure of it.”  
  
Their conversation ends soon after, and Matt is left leaning against the sofa, fighting against the wave of lethargy that’s just washed over him. The only thing keeping him from just curling up on the ground and passing out is the insistent pangs in his stomach, reminding him he hasn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon.  
  
Matt slumps against the sofa, considering and dismissing the possibility of returning to the couch, resigning himself to misery. If he just rests a while, he thinks, he should have the energy to return to the couch, and maybe also order himself something to eat.  
  
The front door sounds with three polite knocks. Matt sits there dumbly, almost sure he’s hearing things. Then it clicks open.  
  
The smell of food hits Matt instantly, chicken soup, newly baked bread, and fresh fruit and vegetables. The now too familiar sound of that ticking watch announces the identity of the intruder, and Matt’s mouth falls slightly open.  
  
Wesley makes his way towards the living room, and then stops at the entry, undoubtedly staring at the sorry sight that is currently Matt Murdock.  
  
“You’re back,” Matt manages.  
  
“Yes,” Wesley says, “I thought I’d get you some food in case you starve.”  
  
Then, Wesley sets the plastic bags on the kitchen counter, and walks towards Matt, who grits his teeth and lets Wesley help him to his feet. Together, they move towards the couch, and Matt finds himself being slowly lowered back onto the soft surface. Wesley picks the blanket up from the floor, and wraps it around Matt’s shoulders.  
  
Matt sits, frozen in bewilderment as Wesley returns to the kitchen, knocking around the drawers and cupboard until he finds a plastic chopping board. Then, he picks up the bags and returns to Matt, who tracks him warily.   
  
Matt holds his breath as Wesley leans in far too close for comfort and places the board on Matt’s lap, nudging away Matt’s arms that are in the way.  
  
“You didn’t have to do this,” Matt says when he finally finds his voice, opening his legs to let the board balance properly.  
  
“And you don’t have to eat it,” Wesley replies wryly, taking out the carton of hot soup and the bread, placing both on top of the board.  
  
“Here,” says Wesley, and there is the sound of ripping plastic and the sudden smell of disinfectant, a sanitising napkin is pressed into Matt’s hand.  
  
Another plastic container is unloaded from the bags, and when Wesley opens them Matt smells fruit salad. Wesley disappears into the kitchen again, and when he returns he drops a spoon onto Matt’s lap, along with a fork.   
  
There’s more food in the bag, Matt can smell at least two different sandwich fillings behind the layers of paper and plastic. He realizes the food belongs to Wesley, who must not have had lunch yet.  
  
Wesley steps away, and there’s the sound of rustling as he picks up the bag again.  
  
“You’re not staying?” Matt asks without thinking.  
  
“Do you want me to?” Wesley replies, and Matt doesn’t miss the tiredness in his voice.  
  
He doesn’t respond, and Wesley take his silence for the rejection that it is. Within seconds, he’s gone again, the door clicking firmly shut behind him, this time, Matt hears the weight of the door lock.  
  
Matt is left sitting with his lap full of food, his mouth watering.


	3. Chapter 3

Wesley makes it through the afternoon on coffee and adrenaline alone, prioritizing a shower and a change of clothes before getting to work finalizing arrangements for the gala that night. Despite his effort to focus on his tasks at hand, his thoughts repeatedly drift to the injured man he left behind.  
  
He’d taken an enormous risk, telling Matthew Murdock the truth about who he is, and Wesley knows with cold certainty that he’s equipped the man with the power to destroy him. Fisk may see him as a friend and a confidante, but only a seed of doubt is needed to dismantle that trust. He’s relied on that fact enough times in his career to know that even the strongest bonds can be shattered with the mere implication of betrayal.  
  
But at the same time, Wesley knows that Murdock is a risk worth taking. A third party, dangerous, incorruptible, no one he’s encountered so far has demonstrated Murdock’s dedication or skill in disrupting this existing status quo. He has the exact amount of mystery, volatility, and blind idealism for the type of misdirection Wesley needs to dismantle Fisk’s empire from within. Murdock will be the perfect scapegoat, a distraction even more effective than the beautiful Vanessa Marianna, while Fisk’s support structure is pulled out from under him.  
  
Indulgence, Wesley finds, be it in sins or virtues, is always what leads people to willingly walk themselves over the cliff. His bribes need only be the promise of something previously thought unattainable, and it rarely mattered whether what is offered is an opportunity or even a person. In the end, it’s only a matter of knowing what gives Murdock that same rush of pleasure most receive from gaining large sums of money. Idealistic men like are not any less predictable than those motivated by greed.  
  
When Wesley is practicing tying bow ties on Francis, the young guard asks Wesley what’s on his mind. Wesley just smiles, and assures him that he’s just concerned about arrangements for the gala. The knot is complicated, and it’s very different doing it for someone else compared to doing it for yourself.  
  
At 4 p.m. sharp, he turns up outside Fisk’s penthouse, and his hands are steady as he prepares Fisk’s bow tie, even if it’s a little hard to remember the moves he just practiced. Leland, as usual, has found another thing to complain about, and Wesley stays silent as Fisk reassures his partner that Vanessa’s continued existence is necessary.  
  
He makes comments when the situation calls for it, and thinks that no one notices the fact he had spent the entire night awake in the apartment of the vigilante they’re trying so hard to kill.   
  
If things go well, he’ll be in bed by midnight, and he thinks it won’t be too hard to hold out until then.  
  
-  
  
At midnight Wesley is staring blankly at a hospital wall, wondering what else can go wrong.   
  
Of all the things to nearly bring an end to Fisk’s life, poisoned champagne had not been on the top of Wesley’s list.  
  
If Vanessa dies, Fisk will tear apart Hell’s Kitchen looking for the people who hurt her.  
  
If Vanessa survives, Fisk will still tear apart Hell’s Kitchen looking for the people who hurt her.  
  
A lot of people are now going to get hurt in the crossfire, all because some idiot was stupid enough to attempt an assassination. Wesley wonders if it wouldn’t have been better if he had followed his whims and drank the champagne too. What a waste of good wine.  
  
He passes time by conversing with Leland, and when his patience runs out he chats with Francis, confirming and reconfirming the security measures they have in place to prevent another attack from happening. Francis’ eyes are worried when he looks at Wesley, and Wesley pretends he doesn’t notice.  
  
The night drags on into morning, and in between cafeteria food and his… something cup of coffee Wesley hides his shaking hands and stays beside Fisk as the man drowns in quiet devastation. Wesley reassures concerned parties through phone call and through text, keeping tabs on the police investigation and their private sources for any hint of the attacker’s identity, Leland leaves with his instructions to speak to Gao.  
  
Wesley should go himself, but Fisk needs him at his side.  
  
Mid-morning, he sends Murdock a text asking him if he’d like Wesley to send someone to take care of his wounds.  
  
As expected, he gets no reply.

-

 

Matt can't see the expression Claire makes when he opens the door, but her silence and the sigh that follows tells him more than enough. She smells like coconut oil and peppermint tea, and the pang of longing that hits Matt takes him by surprise.

“Get on the bed,” Claire says with a sigh, hefting her kit and stepping through the entrance. “Do I even want to know?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t,” Matt replies with a grimace, remembering the fire, Fisk, and the strange morning that followed. He still has no idea what he'll do with Wesley's offer, and the likelihood that he'll be forced to say yes is an unpleasant thought to be left with.

“Alright,” Claire says, grabbing Matt’s elbow despite his protests, and supports him until they reach the bed. Matt sits down, and stiffly takes off his hoodie.

Just hearing Claire’s voice, however, puts Matt at ease. In that moment he lets himself focus on the fact of her presence, instead of the warning he has to give.

Claire goes through her supplies, taking out antiseptic along with the thread and needle. When Matt is settled on the bed, she sits down gently next to him, and goes over his injuries with a critical eye.

“Whoever did this is good, these stitches were neat,” she says, examining the deep cut on Matt’s side where stitches have ripped. “They didn’t tell you not to move around too much?”

“They…” An image of Wesley, bent over him and sewing him back together enters Matt’s mind unbidden. “Sort of.”

“You really need to rest,” Claire continues as she starts to prepare, “Let yourself heal.”

“I meditate for that.”

Claire’s head turns a fraction towards him, telling Matt she just gave him ‘a look’. “So, the one who cleaned you up, new friend?”

“No, uh… no,” Matt says, the denial coming easily. As much as he dislikes this topic it’s better than the one he is avoiding. The idea of having anything close to a friendship with James Wesley feels so ridiculous he almost wants to laugh. He does his best to ignore the friction as Claire slowly removes the ripped stitches. “They just… happened to help.”

“And this person had no issue with your… reputation?”

The man had a direct hand in making Matt’s reputation what it is today. “No.”

“Okaaaay,” Claire says, nodding slowly. “So they’re a fan?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Claire lets out a soft sigh. Matt braces himself, and needle pierces skin.

“What’s your excuse to your best friend this time?” Claire says, finally giving up after the lack of straight answers. “You’re not going to explain this away by claiming you tripped.”

“Bar fight, he already knows.”

When Matt realized that he wasn’t going to make it into work that day, he'd called Foggy. The ensuing conversation is not one he wants to think about.

“He made me apologize for not telling him sooner,” Matt says. Claire is here and the words are falling out of him. Foggy had also wanted to sue the bastards who had done this to Matt, but Matt managed to talk him out of it.

“I bet he did,” Claire says with a quirk of her lips. Her voice is soft, and it makes a smile come to Matt's face.

“He cares a lot about you, your friend.”

“Yeah, he came over right away.” Matt says, “I only just convinced him to leave before I called you.”

“You’re gonna keep doing this then?”

Claire’s voice turns accusatory, and Matt ignores the guilt that surges in his chest.

“I can’t stop now, Claire,” he says quietly, “Not after everything.”

“I don’t want to be stitching a corpse next time, Matt.” Desperation tinges her voice. “You should get some body armor, at the very least.”

Matt had been thinking the same thing. There had been some sort of protective layer in the lining of Fisk’s suit that had saved him from injury during their fight. He remembers the sound of metal slicing through fabric, grating against something hard and metallic. Will Wesley share the details with him if he asks? If Matt wants to he can pitch it as an investment. But the idea of going to Wesley for help, of saying yes and hearing that smugness in his voice, it turns his stomach.

For some time, the only sound in the room is the whisper of thread pulling through flesh. Matt lets himself focus on Claire, her soft breathing, the scent of her soap, and the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. He’s missed her. He’s missed her so much.

“You could tell him, you know.” Claire breaks the silence as she rolls a bandage over his stitches. “You’ll get yourself killed, going at this alone.”

  
Foggy hates the vigilante, and he’ll hate Matt for being him. “It’ll just put him in danger.”

 

“You might think that, Matt,” Claire says, frustration overcoming her patience at last. “But he was in danger from the moment you put on that mask. The least you can do is show him respect by telling him.”

Matt is silent, speechless in the knowledge that she is not wrong. But the thought of telling Foggy, of possibly losing him, is too terrifying to dwell on. In the end, the only thing he can manage is a whispered: “I can’t.”

Claire ignores him from that point, and soon, her work is done. She packs up her bag as Matt pulls his hoodie on over fresh bandages, and is almost at the door before Matt works up the courage to tell her.

“Claire, wait.”

Her movements slow, and then stop. “What is it?” she says, turning toward him.

Matt takes a deep breath.

“You might be in danger.”

“Did something happen?” she says, weariness in her tone.

“Yeah. It might be nothing, but… be careful, alright? Call me if you notice anything suspicious.”

Claire lets out a breath, her shoulders sagging, and Matt can sense her fear.

“It’s okay,” she says softly. “I’m taking some time off, gonna leave the city for a while.”

A spike of panic shoots through Matt at those words. He’s going to be alone now, he realizes with growing apprehension. No one else will know about him except for James Wesley.

“How much time?” he asks without thinking, forcing a flirtatious grin onto his lips. He hears the quiver in his voice and hates himself for it.

“Why?” Claire asks, defiant. “You going to miss me?”

He almost opens his mouth to say yes, but the memory of Wesley in his apartment comes into his mind, and he can’t forget the way the man had been toying with his phone, had showed off the fact that he texted Foggy and convinced him to go home.

Matt swallows back the words he wants to say.

“It’s probably for the best, you’re not safe staying in New York.”

Claire stands there, and then she nods.

“I meant what I said,” Claire says before she leaves, leaving Matt alone in his empty apartment. “Talk to Foggy, don’t go at this alone anymore, Matt.”

 

-

 

Wesley doesn’t know if it’s just his exhaustion getting to him, but something about Leland’s reactions are off. There’s a microsecond of disappointment on his face when he learns that Vanessa is still alive, which makes Wesley reassess the level of distaste Leland has for the woman. And… something the man’s voice tells Wesley there’s more to the story between Leland and Gao. Leland’s attitude, though as insufferable and entitled as always, also feels more belligerent than usual.

Sending Leland home makes Wesley ache for his own apartment. His one stolen nap in the late afternoon has, against logic, somehow only made him more tired. Wesley thinks about his bed, regrets it immediately, then finds a wall to lean on before he makes his next call.

“Hello, Marlene?” he says, forcing cheer into his voice, “It’s Wesley.”

He pushes aside the fog in his head, sagging a little as the conversation continues and they go through the formalities. When Marlene asks about her guests, it takes Wesley a long time to process the meaning.

“Wait, I’m sorry, who came to visit you?”

-

Punching things, Matt has come to find, is an effective form of stress relief, even if it leaves you injured and hurting all over with new injuries on top of old. The violence is an outlet for whatever negative emotions he finds festering inside of him. Anger, frustration, fear, those feelings he can channel into power, fueling his strength and his determination where willpower falters.

He’s leaping from one rooftop to the next, already halfway home from Potter’s workshop when his phone starts to buzz. When Matt lands, he takes a second to calm his breathing before he answers, thinking it must be Foggy.

“Hello?”

“Mr. Murdock.” James Wesley’s smooth voice sounds over the speaker, and Matt immediately has the urge to punch something.

“What do you want?”

“Are you… are you out on the streets again?” Wesley says instead of answering. He sounds almost outraged.

Matt looks around the dark and empty rooftop, the sounds of wind and city traffic suddenly loud to his ears.

“Well that saves me one question,” Wesley continues.

“That’s none of your business right now,” Matt returns, “I haven’t decided about your offer.”

“I’m usually a lot more patient, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley replies without missing a beat. “That’s not why I’m calling.”

Wesley pauses, and Matt resists the urge to just hang up. Every part of his body is throbbing from the fight earlier, and he does not have the time or the patience to play one of Wesley’s games.

“How much do you know about your friends’ activities?”

Those words grab Matt’s attention. “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” Wesley says, “I just received a phone call describing to me the activities of three very particular individuals. A pretty blonde lady with beautiful blue eyes, a nice blond man with long hair, a bit chubby, and an African American gentleman who seemed ‘very kind and a little bit sad’.”

Wesley’s words are like a hand closing around his throat, and it’s harder and harder to breathe. Why didn’t Foggy tell him? He should have asked, he shouldn’t have just assumed they’d sit back after Elena, not when Foggy had turned up at his door like that.

“What did they do?” Matt forces each word, fury simmering beneath his calm.

Wesley is silent for a moment, and Matt knows he is savoring this moment.

“They found Wilson Fisk’s mother, and paid her a visit.”

“If you touch them-“

“Really? Mr. Murdock? Threats?”

Matt bites his tongue, struggling to regain control of his anger. 

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, I thought you might want to save them,” Wesley says as if it’s obvious.

“And you’d just let me do that?”

“Did I dream up our conversation yesterday morning? Or have you forgotten everything we’ve discussed?”

“Right,” Matt almost scoffs, “you’re the good guy.” He still has trouble believing any of it.

“I know I might not act like it, Mr. Murdock, but SHIELD picked people like me for a reason.”

The mention of SHIELD has Matt recoiling, and there’s a dissonance in the idea of Wesley being SHIELD that he still can’t reconcile. He’d checked the deep web and the leak sites containing leaked SHIELD files for any mention of a James Wesley, but there hadn’t been a single match. The complete lack of information was not surprising, but it also did nothing to assuage Matt’s doubts.

“If you want to help Ms. Page,” Wesley continues without waiting for Matt’s response. “Come to the warehouse at the end of Pitt Street.”

“You know I haven’t said yes to your offer.” What could SHIELD have wanted with Wilson Fisk that they’d push him into power? Matt would rather believe that it’s HYDRA who was pulling Wesley’s strings.

“Call it a gesture of goodwill,” Wesley says, “I’d hurry if I were you.”


	4. Chapter 4

She’ll be just the incentive Murdock needs to make the right decision, Wesley thinks as he observes the unconscious form of Karen Page. He doesn’t even have any plans to hurt her. Terrify her, certainly, and threaten everyone she cares about also. But she’ll walk away from this, shaken, but physically unharmed. Even if she says no to his proposal, which in itself is highly unlikely given his experience with these things, there will still be Murdock to convince her.  
  
  
Page wakes with a gasp, and Wesley steps from the shadows.  
  
  
The stage is already set. A dark abandoned warehouse, a single table bridging the space between two plastic chairs. Wesley helps her to sit comfortably, before he takes his position across the table.  
  
  
“You know, funny story, after the Union Allied article I inquired as to whether you needed further attention.  
  
  
To start, they should understand exactly how they ended up exactly where they are.  
  
“You were supposed to go away, Ms. Page. Fade back to... wherever it is people like you fade.”  
  
  
Murdock needs time to get here, so Wesley stalls with whatever topic that comes into his head. He opens with talk of destiny and progresses to discussing how much he dislikes this city. Then he talks about Fisk’s misguided convictions, and wonders how long this is going to take.  
  
  
“Frankly, I was surprised she remembered you…”  
  
  
Fatigue from too many hours spent awake wears at his patience and his tact, and with it he makes missteps, reveals perhaps too much. Even with his impaired state he can see the gears ticking in Page’s head, the way her gaze darts repeatedly to the gun he’s probably placed a little too close to her. But as resourceful and determined she is, Page is ultimately weak.   
  
  
“I’m not here to kill you Ms. Page, I’m here to offer you a job.”  
  
  
She’s resistant, and regards him with the exact same look of utter loathing he’s seen on a hundred other faces. Once upon a time an expression like hers would have sparked trepidation, sent him spiraling into familiar self-loathing. Now, he feels something akin to satisfaction, and a sense of disgust that is no longer directed purely inwards.  
  
  
“But you won’t be the first to die, Ms. Page, no…”  
  
  
It’s the usual song and dance, back them into a corner then throw them a lifeline. The start is always less about convincing them than making sure they’re pushed to the cliff’s very edge and understand completely just how far they have to fall. By the time he’s done, she’ll see that saying yes is her only option.   
  
  
His phone begins to ring and Wesley’s attention turns, Page lunges forward, and he freezes reaching into his suit.  
  
  
Page is back in her seat, gun pointed at Wesley. She’s shaking, her terror clear with every gasping breath. Wesley’s phone rings and rings.   
  
  
This unexpected reversal has Wesley mentally cycling through every mistake he’s made, every omission that’s led him to this point. Force of habit, perhaps, but first, he’s knows he’s gravely underestimated Karen Page. Second-  
  
  
“Do you really think I would put a loaded gun on the table where you can reach it?”

He bluffs, because in his panic and exhaustion the first thing that comes to mind is protecting his pride, and before the words are out of his mouth he knows it’s the wrong thing to say. You don’t goad someone when they’re emotionally high-strung and holding a loaded gun.  
  
  
“I don’t know,” Karen says. There’s a grin twisting her lips like she can already taste her victory. Page cocks the gun and Wesley thinks that he should feel more strongly about dying.   
  
The emotion that washes over him is not fear but relief, and he doesn’t understand why he almost hopes that Murdock doesn’t show. He stares at her, then the gun, more curious than he is anxious about the way things have turned out.  
  
  
“Do you really think this is the first time I’ve shot one?” Page continues.  
  
  
Past tense, that is not good.   
  
  
The air shatters with the sound of a gunshot, and Wesley falls back in his chair, his chest exploding with pain. It hurts, it hurts much more than he remembers, more than Moscow, or Dublin, or Taipei. The world blurs, and then there’s the sound of something striking flesh.   
  
  
Page screams, metal clatters to the floor.   
  
  
It’s hard to breathe.   
  
  
Wesley lifts his head, blinking as he takes in the man in black who is standing across from a terrified Karen Page. The vigilante is here.  
  
  
“It’s you,” Page says, hysteria lining her voice. She scrambles up from the chair and backs away.  
  
  
 _You took your time,_ Wesley wants to say. _My hero,_ some manic part of him also offers. But something shifts in his chest and it’s all he can do to not scream.   
  
  
“Go,” Matt commands, his head turned toward Wesley. The tension in his body language tells Wesley he also did not expect Page to go as far as she did. Does he actually care? Wesley is almost certain he’s imagining the worry that underlined Murdock’s last word. He’s probably worried about Page. That makes more sense.  
  
  
Wesley watches with detached interest as Page stares at him, then at Murdock, eyes wide. “What about him? What are we going to do?”  
  
  
“You need to leave, right now,” Murdock says through gritted teeth, stepping towards her, “I’ll take care of this.”   
  
  
“How?”  
  
  
Wesley would laugh if he could. The girl is terrified, and the reality of what she’s probably just done is only just sinking in, but she is still as tenacious as ever.  
  
  
“He knows,” Karen continues, “He knows I went to see Fisk’s mother. He’ll hurt my friends.”  
  
  
Maybe karma does exist after all, Wesley thinks, his thoughts tarting to drift, he’s going to die here, in this chair, with Page and Murdock standing over him.

 

-

 

The air tastes like gunpowder, and Matt’s ears are filled with the sound of Wesley’s rattling breaths.   
  
“I’ll make sure he says nothing,” Matt says, his patience running thin. With every second Karen stays in this room, Wesley is closer to bleeding out. He needs to provide first aid, but not with her watching.  
  
“How can you know for sure?”  
  
“I do,” Matt growls, then shouts. “Go!”  
  
His anger finally seems to shake Karen, and she backs away one step before she’s running for her bag and away from the scene, her heels clacking against concrete.  
  
In a few steps, Matt is in front of Wesley, and he takes his shoulders and begins to lower him to the ground.  
  
Wesley’s body tenses, his breath hitching with the pain, and his head turns toward Matt, following his movements as Matt reaches inside his suit jacket for Wesley’s phone. The smell of copper is overpowering, but he can still capture the lingering scent of Wesley’s cologne. Black pepper and sandalwood, rose and cinnamon, something far more unique an identifier than his watch, and a detail he had never mentioned with the feeling it’s too intimate.  
  
With his free hand, Matt presses down on Wesley’s wound. The sudden pressure makes Wesley’s legs scrabble against the concrete, and his mouth falls open in a silent gasp.  
  
Only two days, and their roles are reversed. Now Matt kneels above an injured Wesley, holding his phone and his secrets in his hand. Matt dials 911 with the keen awareness of the opportunity he is holding, and tells their address to the operator on the line.  
  
“The ambulance is on its way,” Matt says when he ends the call, dropping the phone to the floor and immediately putting his weight against Wesley’s wound. Wesley bucks uselessly against the pain.  
  
“She’s going to panic,” Wesley says, breathless, when the worst of it subsides.  
  
“I’ll find her later.”  
  
“You… you need to control them, your friends.”  
  
Control? Matt’s head turns toward him, but he doesn’t say anything. Everything is spinning out of control. Right now he can barely keep his own identity a secret, how is he possibly supposed to keep track of what all of his friends are doing?  
  
“If Ben Urich tries to publish,” Wesley continues, his voice weak, “Fisk will know.”  
  
“He won’t, he knows how dangerous it is.”  
  
Wesley laughs, and it ends in a grimace. “Are you sure? Like he understood… the risk of going to visit Fisk’s mother?”  
  
“I’ll talk to them. Now shut up, Wesley.”  
  
Wesley’s head lolls against the concrete, his eyes slipping closed.  
  
“Stay awake,” Matt snaps.  
  
He’ll figure this out, make them leave the city if he has to. Claire could be right about telling Foggy his identity, if they know who he is, then they will take him seriously. He will take losing friendships any day over Foggy and Karen losing their lives.  
  
The red in Wesley’s shirt is still spreading. Matt doesn’t know when the ambulance will get here, but he prays it won’t be much longer.  
  
“You have… two choices,” Wesley says suddenly, his eyes on Matt. “Kill me, or hurt me.”  
  
Matt freezes. “What?”  
  
“If… I live,” Wesley says, his gaze drifting away from Matt towards the ceiling, “I will tell them.”  
  
If Wesley is willing to keep his knowledge a secret for just one day it would be enough for Matt to warn his friends, but that’s not who James Wesley is. He is a man who has to make sure everyone only dances to his tune.   
  
“Lie to them, you’re good at that, aren’t you?”  
  
“They’ll know,” Wesley says, blinking slowly, “and it’ll be worse.”  
  
How would they know? Matt wants to ask, Wesley is the one who controls the information, isn’t he? But Matt doesn’t know the details, he knows nothing about how their organisation works, what information they take for granted, if someone has been tracking Wesley’s car and his phone all this time.  
  
“I don’t believe you,” Matt says quietly. “Tell them it’s Fisk’s rival, that they took you by surprise. You never saw their faces.”  
  
“And the only thing they did… was shoot me in the chest?”  
  
Matt opens his mouth for a retort, and closes it when he realizes what Wesley is saying is true.  
  
“So if I hurt you, you’ll lie for her?”  
  
“Maybe,” Wesley says again with the slightest of smirks, voice barely a whisper. “Do a thorough job and I can claim I don’t remember.”  
  
He’s serious, Matt realises with sudden clarity. He wants Matt to beat him, injure him worse than he already is.  
  
“I could kill you.” By accident.  
  
“Even better, I’ll be out of your hair.”  
  
Matt finds none of this funny. He stays there, frozen, listening for the sound of sirens that still don’t come.  
  
“I’m not going to hit you.”  
  
“Do you have a better idea?” Wesley says. “Or do you want to get this over with?”  
  
He thinks about Foggy, imagines his body broken and torn. Karen, eyes wide and unseeing, her lips blue. Claire, bruised and mangled, her hair matted with blood and dirt.  
  
Matt’s hands clench into fists.  
  
-  
  
It’d be so easy, he realizes in the moment his fist strikes flesh. If he uses just a little more force, if the ambulance takes that much longer, Wesley will die.  
  
And his identity will be safe again. Karen, Foggy, Ben, they might all be safe.  
  
Wesley loses consciousness after the second punch, and then it’s like hitting a ragdoll.  
  
Matt only stops when he hears the sirens, and he falls to his knees, hands grabbing at Wesley’s chest, trying to staunch the free flow of blood. There’s water dripping from his eyes but he blinks them away.  
  
Matt slips away just as the paramedics enter, focusing on Wesley’s breathing, his weakening pulse.

Distance transforms both into silence.

-

“Were you really going to kill him?”  
  
He finds Karen standing in her own apartment, filling a glass from the kitchen sink. Her hair is dripping water onto the floor, and she smells like shampoo and lavender soap. When she hears Matt’s voice, she starts so hard she almost drops the glass.   
  
Karen whirls around, her fingers white and her eyes like saucers. When she sees it’s the vigilante, she closes her eyes and sighs.  
  
“You nearly scared the shit out of me,” Karen says.  
  
Matt just stands there, still hurting from the night’s combat and the chaos that followed. “Sorry.”  
  
Karen looks away, then back towards him, and her heart doesn’t stop racing.  
  
“Were you going to kill him?” Matt asks again.  
  
Karen blinks.  
  
“Yes,” she whispers, “He was the only one who knew, if he died, we could be safe.”  
  
If he had been a second too late Wesley would be dead, Matt thinks. But he’s long past the point of being able to identify what his feelings are. Every part of him is aching, both his old wounds and the new. He’s torn his stitches again, he knows, but the only two people who he trusts to fix him are both gone.  
  
“Is he…?” Karen whispers.  
  
“I don’t know,” he says softly.  
  
Karen is capable of murder, he also realizes, her heartbeat hadn't so much as fluttered.  
  
“What… what did you do?”  
  
His fingers twitch, his hands are still covered with Wesley’s blood, and the coppery scent is suffocating. He’d beaten him, hurt a man who couldn’t fight back. There’d been the faint crack of bone.  
  
“I… roughed him up a bit, Fisk will think he was attacked by his rivals.”  
  
“But he knows-”  
  
“He won’t say anything, not if you don’t.”  
  
Karen freezes, and she stares at him, uncomprehending.  
  
“What are you saying?”  
  
“You can’t go public with this story.”  
  
“So… we’re just going to bend to them?” Karen’s voice rises. “The public deserves to know.”  
  
“There are other ways,” Matt says, unable to keep the exhaustion from his voice. “Fisk’s dirty laundry goes far beyond this one case. But do this, and you paint on target on everyone’s back. You need to ask yourself, is this one piece of truth worth the price of your own life?”  
  
Karen stands stiffly, her eyes wild.  
  
“Is it worth Mr. Urich’s?” Matt presses, wanting, needing Karen to understand what she’s putting at risk, “Mr. Nelson’s?”  
  
Karen reaches for the wall, and her knees crumple from under her. She slowly slides onto the floor, curling in on herself.  
  
“I can’t believe this,” she whispers, staring blankly as she brushes her hair from her face with a shaking hand. “We’re just going to… let them do this to us?”  
  
“We don’t have a choice,” Matt says, curling and uncurling his fingers, ignoring the way the drying blood makes them stiff and stick together. “It’s why I wear this mask.”  
  
He itches to reach out and comfort Karen, but with Wesley’s blood on his hands, the only thing he can allow himself to do is to turn and walk away. He leaves her sobbing on her kitchen floor, and thinks that Matthew Murdock might not be a better friend compared to the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.  
  
-  
  
When he finally stumbles home, it’s twilight, and Matt strips off his torn clothing, wincing as his cuts and sore muscles make protest. He drops the destroyed clothing onto the floor and makes a beeline for the shower.  
  
Under the hot spray, he scrubs the blood from his skin, and both his and Wesley’s blood mingles together as it slips down the drain. He doesn’t understand why he is so affected. Wesley is as bad as any other goon he’s beaten in alleyway, worse, given that his version of corruption is much more insidious than the raw violence administered by street thugs.  
  
Why are his hands shaking?  
  
Matt never expected the situation in the warehouse to turn out as it did. Wesley is supposed to be a pretentious paper-pusher, a coward, a man who flaunts his ill-gotten gains through designer suits and dresses himself up to be a much better man than what he is. Yet the coward, the man bleeding out on a warehouse floor and in agonizing pain, he all but begged for Matt to make things worse for him, risking death just so Karen, Foggy and Ben might have a chance to survive this.  
  
And Matt had done it, he’d beaten a helpless man to save himself. What does that say about him? The lines he’s prepared to cross? And what does it say about Wesley that he can so easily push Matt over that edge?  
  
James Wesley is dangerous, Matt has never stopped being aware of the fact. But at the same time, he wonders if his preconceptions of the man are almost entirely wrong.  
  
Matt doesn’t know him, he never did know James Wesley beyond the shallow conclusions he’d reached after that first meeting. And he’d stubbornly clung to them in all the weeks that followed.  
  
James Wesley was a SHIELD agent, had once been a man who fought to protect innocent people. Even if he’s no longer the man he’s meant to be, his motivations are far more complicated than Matthew knows, his morals without a place within the black and white dichotomy Matt has allowed himself to embrace. Matt had blinded himself in his need to believe that things can be simple, that the lines of good and bad would never be blurred.  
  
He stands under the shower until the water turns cold, and in that time, Matt realizes one thing.  
  
He wants Wesley to live.


	5. Chapter 5

Wesley’s consciousness returns in fragments.  
  
A steady, mechanical beep is the first thing he registers, then the feather-light weight of the blankets covering his body, the hazy, sweet scent of flowers, his limbs feel weighted down with lead, yet he feels adrift as though he is lying on top of clouds.  
  
Someone has trapped his fingers in a tight grip.  
  
Wesley’s eyes blink open, and he stares up at the pale ceiling, slowly trying to gather his disjointed thoughts. His first instinct is, disconcertingly, disappointment at waking up at all, and he pushes that aside in favor of more practical considerations. He has the faint memory of waking once, twice before, when he tried to take a breath and choked on something hard and unforgiving fixed in his throat. An anguished roar still rings at the edge of his consciousness, had it been Fisk?  
  
It doesn’t hurt, Wesley thinks through the haze. This is nothing like that time in Macau. His only discomfort is his dry throat.  
  
He turns his head to examine his surroundings and finds Francis perched at the edge of his chair, head hung, one hand clinging to Wesley’s in a pale grip. The rustle of hair and fabric has Francis looking up in alarm, his eyes widening with the horror when his gaze meets Wesley’s. Francis withdraws his hand like a startled rabbit in the next heartbeat.  
  
It had been his duty to protect Wesley. Francis, who has always been loyal and without fault at Wesley’s back, now sports a terrible bruise on one side of his face.  
  
The jumble of emotions Wesley feels at seeing his bodyguard and driver here at his bedside is not something he has any desire to dissect. Any guilt or affection is just another inconvenience to be filed away at the back of his mind. One emotion he does allow himself to embrace is relief, Fisk had not gone too far in his rage.   
  
Wesley smiles weakly, trying and failing to be reassuring with the way Francis’ expression twists with heartbreak. He tries to speak, but Francis is already rambling before he can get a word out.  
  
“You’re awake! Mr. Wesley, sir, I’ll go get the doctor immediately, and I’ll inform Mr. Fisk.”  
  
Then, Wesley can only watch, with his mouth half open, as Francis almost runs for the door and disappears through it.  
  
He remembers everything about that night – Page, the warehouse, the gun, Murdock – and wishes he doesn’t. He’s done his share of lying while drugged, but it’s not a challenge he enjoys.   
  
Wesley lets out a quiet sigh and closes his eyes. He needs to plan, come up with something least likely to get everyone killed.   
  
He falls asleep before the door opens a second time.  
  
-  
  
The next time Wesley wakes up, Fisk is there.  
  
He is still floating, the painkillers the hospital steadily pumps into him the only thing saving him from screaming in certain agony. It takes him a moment to make note of Fisk there at his bedside. The man has folded himself into a plastic chair that is far too small for his bulk, and stares sullenly at a spot on Wesley’s bed, looking far too much like someone has kicked his puppy.  
  
He compulsively studies his employer; one habit among a dozen others so deeply ingrained even a heavy cocktail of hospital drugs cannot suppress. Though his vision is blurred, Wesley can see the fury simmering beneath Fisk’s sorrow. It’s in the line of tension along Fisk’s shoulders, and the coiled fist the same shape as the bruise that marks Francis’ face, the way Fisk’s lips purse together and tics in an almost snarl every other minute. First Vanessa, and now him, Wesley can’t imagine the past few days have been easy.   
  
Wesley watches, silent in his apprehension. Fisk has been already pushed to the edge, and he can bring no good news for him. The next few minutes will decide not just the fate of Karen Page and Matthew Murdock, but also his own.  
  
Fisk’s gaze drifts toward Wesley, and then he straightens, his eyes lighting up when he sees that Wesley is awake. Wesley tries another smile, and this time it works better than it had on Francis. Fisk’s shoulders sag with relief, and his mouth twitches with the beginnings of a smile.  
  
“Sir,” Wesley says, his voice a scratchy whisper. He winces at the sound of it, and his throat tickles, threatening a cough.   
  
Fisk is already reaching for the bedside table, and there’s the sound of clinking as the man fishes out a chip of ice from the water jug, which he carefully offers to Wesley on a spoon.  
  
“I’m… very glad to see you awake,” Fisk says with his familiar stutter. “Wesley,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.  
  
Wesley lets Fisk feed him the ice, and sucks on it coolly, the melting water a welcome relief for his parched throat. He senses the maelstrom of emotions coming from his employer. The knowledge of Fisk’s turmoil calms him, the current scene an echo of countless others he’s become skilled in negotiating. All he has to do is lie, he thinks, lying is easy.  
  
“What…” Wesley begins, playing his thoughtfulness for confusion, “What happened?”  
  
Fisk looks up at him then, his mouth opening and closing as he summons up the courage to admit aloud what Wesley has just gone through.  
  
“You were… attacked,” Fisk says, “They found you in a warehouse, you had been shot.”  
  
Wesley frowns, staring at the wall with a mask of blank confusion. “Oh.”  
  
“We’re trying to find out who attacked you,” Fisk continues, “If there’s anything you remember…”  
  
That is an excellent question Wesley doesn’t know how to answer. He needs more.  
  
“How… how long have I been…?” Wesley’s eyes slip closed and he forces them open again, outwardly as disoriented as the drugs are making him feel. Tendrils of exhaustion are already grasping at his consciousness, and he taps Fisk’s sympathy for all it’s worth. “Um…”  
  
Fisk’s gaze flits away again, guilt weighing the lines of his face. “It’s been five days since we found you.”  
  
Five? Wesley blinks in surprise, it’s never taken that long for him to wake up before. But then again, maybe that was SHIELD’s medical technology at play.  
  
“There were… some complications, we almost lost you, Wesley.”  
  
Five days, and Fisk still hasn’t found his attackers, which means…  
  
His weakness is not entirely an act, and Wesley’s mind works furiously against the tranquil numbness the drugs in his system are trying to enforce. It means that he doesn’t know about Page, that Marlene’s reasons for calling Fisk that night must have slipped through her memory. It means that at the very least Murdock’s friends remain safe for the time being.  
  
That is, unless all those people are dead, and this is Fisk’s way of testing Wesley’s loyalty.  
  
Fisk’s imposing figure looms over Wesley’s bed, and Wesley remembers with startling clarity the depth of rage and violence which his employer has always barely kept contained beneath the surface. How would he react if he confirms that his most trusted right-hand man – his best friend – is a traitor?   
  
The bloody and mangled corpse of Anatoly Ranskahov floats to the front of his mind.  
  
It would be too simple for him to simply tell the truth, and damn Murdock and his friends to a painful death. He could spin his insubordination as a calculated risk, a stupid attempt to wrangle the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen into their control. It is both the simplest and the least appealing option, and it means turning his back on everything he’s worked towards in the past few years, betraying his only ally at the risk of his own life.  
  
So, the alternative, embrace his talents and make up a story about what happened. Fisk has many rivals and Wesley knows all of them well, including the ones who were popular enough during their prime to still have connections in this city. It won’t be hard to fabricate a kidnapping and an attempted murder.  
  
“Wesley?”  
  
There’s a tremor in Fisk’s usually gruff voice that makes Wesley’s stomach twist.  
  
“I-I’m sorry, sir,” Wesley responds in a hurry, selling distraction as exhaustion, “The, uh… the last thing I remember…”  
  
Wesley considers pressure of the bandage around his head, the five days it’s taken for him to wake. He needs to take a chance.  
  
“I don’t… we were in the hospital,” Wesley says, letting a hint of distress slip through his usual control, “I was calling… um…”  
  
He licks his lips, staring at the wall as he pretends to struggle with his memory.  
  
“The senator, to cancel your meeting with him.”  
  
Wesley looks up at Fisk then, anxiety coloring his expression like an eager pup seeking his master’s approval. He lets his expression fall when he finds Fisk staring at him with his mouth fallen open, devastation on his face.  
  
“I can’t… I can’t remember anything after that,” Wesley murmurs, looking away in the next instant with obvious guilt. “I’m sorry, sir.”  
  
“No,” Fisk growls, his voice soft, “No, we will find them, and they will be sorry.”  
  
It worked.  
  
Wesley is careful not to let his relief show as Fisk leaves him with reassurances and orders to rest. He asks more questions, digging for as many details as Fisk is willing and able to relinquish. He walked off by himself after calling Marlene, he’s told, and he would have got taken afterwards. Fisk doesn’t think it’s the same people who attacked them at the benefit, though he refuses to explain why. Throughout it all, Wesley maintains his act of confusion and restlessness.  
  
And Fisk buys it, all of it, without as much as a hint of hesitation or doubt.

-

Wilson Fisk had transferred his injured right hand man to one of the best private hospitals in Manhattan, but with the cover of night, finding the most heavily guarded room and sneaking to the window turns out to be much easier task than finding Detective Blake all those weeks ago. The secluded location and towering trees block any curious eyes from the street as he finds his way past the guards and climbs the building façade. Matt doesn’t know which room James Wesley is in, but he can easily tell which one had the highest security with the cacophony of heartbeats around it.  
  
Stepping carefully along the narrow ledge, Matt approaches his goal, focusing on the weakened heartbeat of the room’s occupant, the slow drip of the IV. There’s no familiar tick of a Cartier watch or the musk of cologne to tell him he has it right, but there isn’t anyone else here who is under as heavy guard.  
  
There’s someone else in there, on the far side of the room away from Matt’s window. The person’s breathing is even and his heartbeat firm and strong, a guard. Fisk is really taking no chances when it comes to Wesley’s safety.  
  
For a moment, Matt considers what James Wesley must have done to earn this level of protectiveness from a man like Fisk. Does Wesley really have no issue with betraying someone who has placed their trust in him so heavily? Is this what he’s made a career on as a SHIELD Agent?  
  
The bed is close to the window, and the breathing of the man lying on it tells Matt he is awake. Matt closes his eyes and thanks God for small mercies. He shifts to the side, positioning himself at an angle that can only be seen by someone looking out the window from the bed. Then he reaches out, and taps once on the glass.  
  
The breathing of both people in the room pause, and there’s a moment of uncertain silence before the person by the door begins to move toward Matt’s window.  
  
“I was just knocking against the bedframe. It’s okay, Francis.”   
  
Wesley’s voice sounds, hoarse and quiet, and far from the smooth baritone Matt remembers. The footsteps stop, and its owner hesitates before returning to his original post.  
  
He has the right room, Matt thinks with a quiet sigh of relief, fixing his grip and his balance so he doesn’t fall off the side of the building. Now if Wesley will just get the guard out of the room.  
  
Minutes pass, and Matt presses his head against the wall, wishing he had worn an extra layer. Finally, Wesley’s voice sounds again.  
  
“It’s a bit stuffy in here, could you open the window, Francis?”

Matt swallows a curse.  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
The footsteps sound a second time and Matt scrambles to pull himself up another story. His arms are growing tired from continued effort, and Matt grits his teeth as he makes it up just in time for the window below him to be thrown open. There’s a small explosion of warm air escaping into the night, and every sound from the room becomes clearer.  
  
The man returns to his post, and Matt chooses not to move for fear of the sound attracting more attention.  
  
Another ten minutes pass, during which Matt’s arms and legs begin to go numb from the strain. If Wesley doesn’t give him an opening to go in soon, he’ll have to come back another time.  
  
Just as Matt is starting to have serious thoughts about his apartment and his bed, Wesley acts.  
  
“Francis, I need you to go to my apartment,” Wesley orders coolly, “and bring back some books.”  
  
“Sir?” the man by the door replies, “I could send-“  
  
“No, I don’t trust anyone else with access,” Wesley interrupts before Francis can get out a finished sentence. “There’s two on my bedside table and another one on the coffee table. Can you bring them for me?”  
  
The unexpected order has Francis gaping for a moment, before he nods. “Of course, sir, anything you need.”  
  
The guard moves toward the window, and Wesley’s voice sounds again.  
  
“Just close it when you get back.”  
  
Francis hesitates again, looking towards Wesley and then the window, before he nods and turns toward the door.  
  
“Leave the others outside, I’ll be fine on my own.”  
  
“Yes sir.”  
  
The door opens, then clicks closed, and Matt drops onto the window sill below, landing inside the room with a small leap.  
  
On the bed, Wesley’s head turns toward him. There are cuts and bruises along his face, the worst injury hidden under a thick bandage, and his exposed skin colder than it should be. Matt remembers with sudden guilt that he is part of the reason Wesley is hurt this badly.  
  
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Wesley murmurs, the corners of his mouth lifting with a smirk.  
  
Matt had lasted one week before he made the call to Claire, asking her yet another favor to find out where James Wesley was transferred to after arriving in Emergency. Adding to his guilt, she’d given him her assistance without protest, calling her work while away in another city.  
  
That entire week, he had been restless and high-strung, not knowing whether to expect Fisk’s men on his doorstep at any moment, or if Wesley had even survived what he went through at Matt’s hands. The vigilante had stayed away from both Ben and Karen, only meeting them (and even Foggy) once to deliver vague warnings about the danger they’re in. Matt had forced himself to stick to routine patrolling, breaking up armed robberies and assaults.   
  
Meanwhile, Fisk’s plans were moving forward. For that entire week, Matt felt powerless.  
  
“I had to make sure you’d be in a state to talk,” Matt returns coldly, his voice soft to avoid attracting the attention of the guards outside.  
  
“Since you haven’t started threatening me with violence, I assume Ms. Page, Mr. Nelson, and Mr. Urich are all doing well?”  
  
“They’re… doing okay, given the circumstances,” Matt says. He’d kept an eye on Karen in the days that followed the shooting, she had been antsy, nervous, but seemed more concerned with making sure Matt and Foggy were alright than anything else. There’d been a few nights at the bar where they all had a few more drinks than wise, but Karen seemed to be fine. Ben too, was back in his office, and getting on a little better with his editor now that he spends more of his time doing the articles the paper wants.  
  
“Thank you,” Matt says. Despite knowing Wesley had set up that scene in the warehouse specifically to trap him into saying yes, Matt can’t help feeling grateful. Wesley’s night had not gone to plan, yet he did not betray them.  
  
Wesley regards him silently, his demeanor unreadable. “No, I should be thanking you,” he says eventually. “You saved my life, Mr. Murdock.”  
  
“I just hope I don’t come to regret it,” Matt says, falling too easily back into animosity.  
  
His words are met with a chuckle that ends in a pained gasp. Wesley’s head lolls against the pillow as he takes a slow, controlled breath.  
  
“Do you… ever get tired of that? Being suspicious all the time?”  
  
“With you I think I have good reason to be.”  
  
“Considering I’m lying here because of you? I thought I’d have at least earned a modicum of trust by now.”  
  
“You’re only here because you chose to put a loaded gun in front of a terrified woman who you chose to intimidate alone in an unguarded warehouse.”  
  
“I’m not claiming that was a smart thing to do, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley responds, exhaustion coloring his tone, “but the alternative was to kill her.”  
  
“Because you couldn’t have warned her? You couldn’t have warned me, instead of kidnapping her in front of her own building?”  
  
“And what would you have done, Mr. Mudock? Put on that scary mask to intimidate her in your own way? Do you think she would have learned if you had only given her a stern talking to? When the death of her colleague, when her near-brush with death while in custody didn’t teach her that lesson?”   
  
Wesley sags against the bed, but his words are cold and harsh. Every one of Matt’s enhanced senses tells him of Wesley’s pain and exhaustion.  
  
“You of all people should understand, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley murmurs, “that sometimes only a show of force… can save people from themselves.”  
  
They’re only excuses, Matt knows… thinks he knows as much, yet he can’t help but remember the threats of violence he’s made to countless people just to deter them from committing their crimes again. They had been criminals, yes, but so many had also been homeless teenagers, jobless parents – people forced by circumstance.  
  
Matt falters, the righteous rage that had simmered inside since the shooting dissipating into confusion and frustration.

“You can believe what you want,” Matt says, unable to face Wesley. “But I’m not here for a moral debate.”  
  
“Then you’ve made your decision?” Wesley says with a soft sigh, his eyes falling closed, and then opening again.  
  
He’s pushed Wesley beyond his limits. Guilt reemerges, unbidden, Matt resists it for all it’s worth.  
  
“You already know what it is,” Matt says, his words taste like defeat. “A partnership, we help each other bring down Fisk.”  
  
Wesley smiles then, an expression so soft it makes Wesley’s heart flip. There’s no duplicity in his expression, no sleazy charm or forced cheer. In his exhausted, injured state there is something about Wesley that feels unguarded, perhaps as close as he will ever get to vulnerability.  
  
Or is he only like this in front of Matt – the only person who knows the truth of who he really is?  
  
His thoughts have drifted to a strange place, and Matt catches himself before they wander even further from the important things still unaddressed. Why would he for a moment think of Wesley as…  
  
Matt digs into his pocket, pulling out a small piece of folded white paper with a red symbol on top.  
  
“We can start here,” Matt says, tossing it onto the bed by Wesley’s hand, “What can you tell me about this symbol?”  
  
Wesley stares curiously at the scrap of paper, before he picks it up and raises it into the light. His expression shifts into seriousness.  
  
“Why do you want to know?”  
  
“The Chinese’s drug trade, I’m going to put an end to it.”  
  
Wesley’s silent for a moment. “That might not be wise.”  
  
“You said you would help me.”  
  
“I said we would help _each other_ ,” Wesley says, “which means you need to listen to what I have to say before you go chasing after someone.”  
  
Matt holds back a growl, reminding himself that he's chosen this, this truce, this partnership. “Alright, I’m listening.”  
  
Wesley sighs, exhaustion lining his features. “Have you ever noticed Hell’s Kitchen’s unusually large blind Chinese population?”  
  
“What are you saying?”  
  
“Ninety-nine percent of them are drug mules,” Wesley regards Matt with a weary glance. “They blinded themselves, from what I was told, and Madame Gao – the head of the Chinese – she pays them a living wage in exchange for their services.”  
  
Matt’s blood turns colder with every word.  
  
“These people, most of them are illegal migrants, and they barely speak any English. If you expose them to the justice system, they will never get out, even if they manage to last given their disabilities.”  
  
Matt understands the truth behind Wesley’s words, understands them too well. Detention centers, jails, people like that disappear into the system and will never find a proper life again.  
  
“It’s part of the reason I never did anything about them back then, and now…”  
  
Wesley drifts off into silence with a sigh of frustration. SHIELD is no more, is that the problem? There is no one who can arrange a better outcome than what the American justice system can deliver. If he takes down Gao, he condemns dozens of people to a lifetime of poverty and torment. Do the ends justify the means? Matt suddenly wishes he could speak with Father Lantom. There has to be some way… he can’t just stand back.  
  
“Her drugs are killing people, I’m not going to let her continue.”  
  
Wesley nods weakly, his eyes slipping closed. “And organizations from outside will step in to fill the gap, there will be turf wars, poor quality product being sold at a premium. More people die in the crossfire.”  
  
“So you’re saying we just let this continue?”  
  
“I’m explaining, Matthew,” Wesley says, his eyes opening tiredly, “the consequences of your intended actions. The junkies of Hell’s Kitchen won’t… can’t stop just because it’s suddenly harder to get what they want. They’ll just travel further, pay more for worse product, and die faster.”  
  
Matt is silent, wanting, needing a way to refute Wesley’s words but coming up with nothing more than ideology.   
  
“It’s not right.”  
  
“No,” Wesley says, his voice fading. “But if you want to be the cause of the gang wars that will break out as Fisk defends his territory, then by all means.”  
  
Matt's shoulder's sag, with the new weight of a responsibility he had never thought to contemplate. He paces, displeasure and frustration swirling together in a poisonous mix. The only thing he wants is for Hell's Kitchen to become a better, a safer place. Cutting off the flow of drugs may hurt people, but their continuance means that Hell's Kitchen can never start to recover.   
  
Matt can just continue to fight, take a stand against whatever new threats that come.  
  
He remembers then, all those times he's come so close to death, to discovery, in his battle against Fisk. Only Fisk.  
  
“Where are the Chinese?”  
  
“Warehouse 16, Pier 88.”  
  
He can go find the Chinese, Matt thinks. He should go find them, tomorrow night. But Wesley’s words still echo in his mind.  
  
Consequences.  
  
By the time Matt leaves through the window, Wesley is passed out in his bed.


	6. Chapter 6

The following evening, Matt finds himself frozen on a rooftop across from the warehouse, dressed in his vigilante outfit. He is rested and ready, but he cannot bring himself to move.   
  
He had spent that entire day trying to convince himself that this is a good idea, reminding himself again and again that this is the right thing to do. No matter what the repercussions may be, what is wrong is wrong. Drugs cannot be allowed to continue their influence over Hell’s Kitchen. It was Fisk and the Chinese’s drugs that had led to Elena’s death just as much as it was that junkie whose dependence led to murder.  
  
And yet Wesley’s words continue to echo in his mind. Gang wars, poor quality drugs, the junkies won’t simply disappear if their supply runs dry, and desperation may lead to even more violence than what already exists on the streets.   
  
Until now, Matt’s awareness of collateral damage had been limited to the peripheral. He understands, in theory, that his violent approach to crime-fighting is neither the most subtle nor the most precise way of solving the problem. He had started out with little but anger and determination, beating compliance and answers out of thugs to enforce his best imitation of justice.   
  
Yet Matt’s impact has been small, the risk of collateral damage so limited he could safely pretend it does not exist. Taking out the Chinese’s operation will have a bigger impact than ever before. He should be excited, be pleased, be relieved that this is his first chance to finally make a real difference. But Wesley’s words has dragged to the forefront of every risk he had failed to see, worse, had willingly ignored. The fallout of this decision can just as easily hurt more people than it will save.  
  
So instead of taking out the door guard and making his way into the building, Matt stays crouched on the rooftop, counting the cars that come and go.   
  
Matt does not know who the blind drug mules were before they blinded themselves, if they ever chose to do such a thing. They might be murderers, kidnapped victims, perhaps they have family waiting back home. The police will mitigate the effect of any gang violence…  
  
Sitting there on the freezing rooftop, Matt repeats to himself the same arguments he had used during the day. It had pushed him this far, yet no further. Now, he sits here, angry, furious with himself, but frozen by the fear of a responsibility he is not ready to bear.  
  
When the sky grows pale with dawn, Matt comes to accept one fact.  
  
He can’t do this, not yet, not knowing what he does now.  
  
-  
  
“Hey, Matt, you okay?”  
  
Foggy’s worried voice sounds across the table, and Matt’s head turns in his friend’s direction.  
  
“You were distracted all yesterday, and now you look like you’re about to pass out. Did you even sleep last night?”  
  
“Yeah, Matt, you look really pale.” Karen’s voice joins in from his side. “Is something wrong?”  
  
The three of them are seated around Matt’s desk, going through the tall pile of documents Marci had passed on from the Landman and Zack office. So far, there’s been nothing but standard legal contracts and documents, nothing which even hints at a sign of illegal activity. Ever since the documents came in a week ago, this has been their daily ritual.  
  
“It’s nothing, I was just…” Matt trails off, unsure how to explain without implicating himself in things he wants neither of his friends to know.  
  
“A… bout to tell us what you’ve been thinking about for the last two days?” Foggy teases.  
  
“I…” Matt thinks to deny there’s anything wrong, but Foggy and Karen are regarding him with worried, curious eyes, and a different response comes to his mind instead.  
  
“Have you ever…” Matt says, trying to organize his words, uncertain if this is a good idea. “Been so sure that the way you were approaching a problem was the only solution? That people may get hurt but you’re still doing the right thing? But then… someone else comes along, shows you an entirely different perspective, and you realize you might have been making things worse all along?”  
  
“Many times,” Foggy says with a frown, “Like I was so sure that boiling instant noodles for ten minutes instead of two would make it better cooked so it would taste better? Wasn’t the case.”  
  
Matt laughs, and Karen groans. “Really?”  
  
“Yeeeah,” Foggy says, somber.  
  
For a few seconds, there’s silence, and Matt finds himself smiling. Then, the moment passes, and his smile fades.  
  
“Yet you don’t know if that other solution is really better, or if it’s just makes things worse in a different way,” Matt continues quietly. “How do you decide?”  
  
It’s unfair of him to ask this of them, he thinks, but his confusion and desperation are reaching a breaking point. He’d been even thinking of going to see Father Lantom again, yet being here, and surrounded by his two most important friends, Matt finds his careful façade cracking open.  
  
“What does your heart tell you?” Karen says softly, her eyes not leaving Matt.   
  
“I… I don’t know. I just want to do the right thing.”  
  
“Maybe you can find a third solution?” Foggy says with a shrug, “I mean, you can never know for sure if what you’re doing is going to be the right decision in the long run. The best you can do is look at all the options, weigh up the pros and cons, and go for it. Whatever happens, you just have to live with the consequences.”  
  
“Consequences,” Matt murmurs. "Yeah.” He’s been hearing that word a lot recently. Matt lets out a breath, shifting in his chair to a more comfortable position. He needs to let this drop. “I’m sorry guys, you don’t have to worry about me, I’ll figure this out.”  
  
“It’s okay, Matt,” Karen says, leaning forward. “You’ll let us know if we can help, right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Matt replies, the edge of his lips lifting with a genuine smile, “Of course.”  
  
He wants to protect them, he thinks, Foggy, Karen, and all the others who cannot fight back against Fisk, against a system designed to oppress them.  
  
But perhaps… another way.  
  
They settle back into reading through the files, and the next time conversation starts, they go back to lighter things.

-

Wesley is floating on the edge of sleep when the sound of a sharp knock against the window pierces through his consciousness.  
  
He forces open his eyes, blearily staring at the shadows, his mind an exhausted blank.  
  
The knock comes again.  
  
“Come in?” he asks the empty hospital room, a little confused by the fact that Matthew Murdock hasn’t just slipped inside when he found Wesley alone.   
  
There is the sound of grinding as the window is pulled open, and then boots scuffing against wood, a soft thud as Murdock lands inside Wesley’s room.  
  
Wesley turns his head toward his visitor, looking over Murdock with a practiced eye. The man is again dressed in his vigilante gear, the form fitting outfit giving Wesley a fine view of his muscles and ass, but today it’s clean and without tears. Murdock had avoided fights on the way here.  
  
“I have to be honest,” Wesley opens with a jibe. “I never expected you to knock.”  
  
“I was taught to be polite,” Murdock returns without missing a beat, standing tense by the window. “Where’s your bodyguard?”  
  
“I convinced him to go home and get some sleep,” Wesley says. “It’d be inappropriate for him to interrupt our secret rendezvous, wouldn’t it now?”  
  
Wesley watches with great amusement as Murdock relaxes, and then freezes again at Wesley’s almost flirtatious turn of phrase. Murdock’s mouth opens, and then closes. his lips pressing together in a thin line. Wesley hides a laugh.  
  
“I notice the Chinese are still in business,” Wesley says a beat later, deciding to go easy on Murdock.  
  
He’d spoken before Murdock could get a word out in response, and the change of topic has Murdock regarding him seriously. “I… gave some thought to what you said, about consequences.”  
  
“And I assume you reached some sort of conclusion as to where you stand on the issue?”  
  
Murdock does not reply right away. He looks conflicted, frustration in the dip of his brow, the twitch of his fingers.  
  
“Tell me something,” Murdock says after a long hesitation, “What do you plan to do with them, the Chinese? Or is your plan to leave them to their crimes?”  
  
It’s not a question Wesley hasn’t anticipated, but having his own failures thrown in his face stings all the same. The idea of condemning fifty blind men and women to the American justice system had sat so uncomfortably with him years ago he’d stood back and allowed the partnership to prosper. The idea had been to let SHIELD take care of the victims when the time came for the mission to end. But there always was a saying about best-laid plans.  
  
He hadn’t had a plan for dealing with a Chinese, had been missing any concrete strategy relating to the grand scheme of things in perhaps too long. There had been nothing besides a vague ideology, besides blind, fumbling efforts to control the symptoms of a disease the city will never shake. But the events of the past few weeks has led him to an opportunity.

“I have… something in the works,” Wesley says slowly, revealing as little as he can get away with.   
  
“Would you care to share with the class?”  
  
“There is an… opportunity that has presented itself,” Wesley says, carefully choosing his words, “But I would rather not go into the details until I’m certain it is worth the commitment.”  
  
He responds with his usual vagueness more out of habit than deliberation. Wesley hates to make promises he cannot keep, and he would rather not get Murdock’s hopes up about something still uncertain.  
  
Mudock’s mouth opens, and Wesley reads the impatience on his face, prepares himself for another disgruntled lecture.  
  
“How long?”  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“How long before you’re certain?”  
  
“Could be a week, could be a month.”  
  
“So you have no idea.”  
  
“In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Murdock, I am currently in a hospital, and under heavy guard. The situation doesn’t exactly lend itself to planning and investigation. I can barely touch my cell phone without Francis making puppy dog eyes at me, and my only unmonitored conversations are the ones I get to share with you at night.”  
  
His voice falters on the final words, and Wesley has to take a slow breath, willing his heart to calm, and the twinge in his chest to go away. Matt stands by the window awkwardly, looking almost guilty for causing Wesley’s current discomfort.  
  
“Fisk,” Wesley says when his body is willing to cooperate, “Has ordered me to rest, which means I am cut off of my usual duties. I have no way to monitor what is currently happening in the organization, or any way of reaching my contacts.”  
  
“So I’m wasting my time here.”  
  
“You can always encourage Fisk to let me start doing my job again.”  
  
His words get Murdock’s attention, and the vigilante turns towards Wesley, his body again tense with suspicion.  
  
“And how exactly do you want me to do that?”  
  
Wesley watches Murdock for a moment, considering the style of violent intimidation the man is famous for.  
  
“Fisk’s new accountant,” Wesley says. “You can scare him off.”  
  
“And Fisk will bring you back into the fold?” Murdock replies, skeptical.  
  
“If he quits it means that Fisk will be forced to monitor things personally until he can find a suitable replacement,” Wesley says. “And if he wants to safely juggle every responsibility there is… he’s going to need me, even only in a minor capacity.”  
  
“What happened to his last accountant?”  
  
Leland. The man had embodied just about every negative stereotype for someone of his generation, and working with him had been a chore. He didn’t deserve to die the way he did, yet Wesley finds himself far less regretful for Leland Owsley’s death than he perhaps should be  
  
“He was caught for skimming from the accounts,” Wesley says, “and had an… intimate encounter with an elevator shaft."  
  
Murdock’s expression twists with disgust upon hearing the about Leland’s fate, and Wesley offers a grim smile Murdock can’t see.  
  
“So think of it as doing the man a favor.”  
  
“Do you know his name?”  
  
“Nathan Turner. He works at Morgan and King.”  
  
It had been Francis who’d let things slip, sitting beside Wesley’s bed on the expensive hospital chair. Wesley had been poking at the boundaries, asking Francis and anyone in their service who approached him for a phone or a tablet so he could at least get a handle on how things were going outside. It was too much risk to try contacting Murdock, but Wesley still couldn’t resist the compulsive need to check that everything in Fisk’s empire is operating efficiently and to plan.  
  
When Fisk found him with a tablet in his lap tapping out an email to a business contact, Wesley’s employer had stared at him with so much hurt and anger in his eyes Wesley sheepishly handed the tablet back to a panicked Francis.  
  
From that point on, he’d been reduced to grilling his personal bodyguard – who had been ordered to stay at his side – for information. It took at least three major slips before Francis caught on and spent long seconds in silence before answering any of Wesley’s requests that didn’t come in the form of an order.  
  
Murdock nods once, slow, and still with that hint of belligerence Wesley is getting used to seeing.  
  
“I’ll take care of it.”  
  
With no more reason to stay, Murdock opens the window, and slips back into the night. Wesley stares at the window for a long time, before he closes his eyes.  
  
Maybe this will work out after all, he thinks as he relaxes into sleep, and all it took was a bullet and a beating.

-

Nathan Turner is a chubby, balding man in his late 50s, who moves from one place to another more by waddling than walking. He has a preference for Thai food and has a slight addiction to mints, as well as an old knee injury on his right leg that gives him trouble.  
  
That is a collection of facts which becomes apparent to Matt after five seconds of observation.  
  
The man, as it turns out, is a workaholic who stays in the office until long after business hours. It makes the dark and almost empty underground parking lot of his office building the perfect place for an ambush.   
  
It’s where Matt settles in to wait two nights after his meeting with Wesley.   
  
Turner emerges from the elevators at sixteen past nine, and makes a beeline for his brand new Mercedes Benz, undoubtedly bought using the sign up bonus for agreeing to manage Fisk’s dirty money. Matt, waiting in the shadows, approaches him just as he goes to open the door.  
  
Matt reaches out, grabbing the collar of Turner’s coat and wrapping one gloved hand around his mouth in one swift movement. A kick to the back of the knees in the same second has the man toppling to the ground.  
  
“You’re working for a very bad man, Mr. Turner,” Matt growls as he moves in, his voice harsh against Turner’s ear. “Fisk’s accounts, you are going to take them to the police.”  
  
He loosens the hand on the man’s mouth, and Turner’s harsh gasps immediately sound across the empty parking garage.   
  
“I don’t, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
The man’s voice is tight with fear and panic, and he wriggles beneath Matt’s weight in a desperate attempt to free himself. Matt’s patience runs thin, and lets loose a feral growl, and hauls the man to his feet, slamming him against the window of his car in a show of violence.  
  
“Do not lie to me. I know you’re Fisk’s new accountant. And if you don’t want to have an intimate experience with an elevator shaft like his last one, you will take those accounts to the FBI.”  
  
“I don’t… I… he’ll kill me,” Turner whimpers, hysterical. “He’ll kill me and my wife and my children and… please, please!”  
  
“You should have thought of that when you took the job,” Matt says. “If you don’t give yourself up, I will find you, and know that whatever Fisk may try to do to you, I can do worse.”  
  
He steps back, releasing his hold. Turner immediately slumps to the ground, curling in on himself as he inches away from the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. “I… I… I ca-”  
  
“You have two days.”  
  
The sound of an approaching car draws near, and Matt walks away into the dark. He leaves the man shaking in a crumpled pile against his car, and prays this does the job.  
  
-  
  
The next few days pass in a blur, and every night Matt debates with himself whether or not to visit Wesley in the hospital. He’d done as Wesley asked, this time, even if he’s uncertain that this is the right thing to do. Still, what he’d done to Turner hadn’t been too far away from what he’s used to delivering on other thugs and enforcers of Fisk’s. Part of him hopes that Turner will just do as he demanded and deliver the evidence to law enforcement, that Turner doesn’t get himself caught by Fisk’s men.  
  
In the middle of the third day, he gets a text from an unknown number. When it arrives, Matt is neck deep in files, working on a new case. Nelson and Murdock had found another client, this time a man wrongfully accused of an armed burglary.   
  
He puts in his earphones and asks his phone to read it aloud, and the mechanic, masculine tone that sounds is uncomfortably close to the voice of the text’s sender.  
  
 _Your help is appreciated, though I recall asking for you to scare him, and not to turn himself in to the police._  
  
Matt sits there for a moment, blinking at the unexpected message. So Wesley got his phone back.  
  
“Excuse me,” Matt says, getting up from his chair to head for the room over. Foggy murmurs something in acknowledgement, his eyes never leaving his laptop screen.  
  
“It did the job, didn’t it?” he says into the phone once he’s in Foggy’s office, and sends the message.  
  
Two seconds later, the reply arrives.  
  
 _Yes._  
  
There’s nothing more beyond that statement, and Matt stands there, feeling strangely rejected. Turner must have fled, knowing he couldn’t escape either Fisk or Matthew if he stayed. It would have been too easy if he had just gone and turned himself in. Now Wesley is able to proceed with his plan, whatever that may be, and Matt can only take his word that it will bring down the Chinese without destroying more lives in the process.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
He leans against the desk, awkwardly waiting for Wesley’s response. This time, it takes twenty-two seconds  
  
 _He wrote a very apologetic e-mail and then absconded with his family to Wisconsin. Fisk is furious as predicted._  
  
“So you got what you want.”  
  
A pause, even longer this time.  
  
 _You make it sound like I held a gun to your head and forced you to do this._  
  
“You know my identity, and you have Fisk’s men, forgive me for not feeling like we’re on even ground.”  
  
One minute passes, then two, and Matt wonders what Wesley is thinking, if he even read the text. The fact that Matt willingly said yes to his offer did not change the fact that Wesley holds not just Matt’s, but also Karen, Foggy, and Ben’s lives hostage. Even if he hadn’t made a display of sacrifice that night in the warehouse, he could have secured Matt’s cooperation through simple threats alone. Wesley’s claim of being a SHIELD Agent is only that – a claim, and little more.  
  
Matt is still half convinced that Wesley is lying. If Wesley is really a SHIELD agent, why would he stay? Willingly arrange for people’s lives to be destroyed, to be ended? The fact of Elena’s death still hangs over Matt’s head, just as it does over Foggy and Karen, and Matt knows that Wesley had a direct hand in what had happened. None of those things can be simply wiped away with a simple claim that Wesley used to work for the ‘good’ guys.   
  
It doesn’t sit right with him, taking orders from a man he cannot trust, no matter how hard Wesley tries to pretend they got this far through mutual agreement.  
  
Matt’s phone chimes.  
  
 _I thought you’d trust me by now._  
  
The voice in Matt’s ear is robotic, but the accusatory, even sulking tone is unmistakable.  
  
“You don’t exactly have a reputation for being honest.”  
  
This time, it only takes half a minute for his phone to ping an alert.  
  
 _What would I get out of lying to you?_  
  
So Wesley wants to play this game? Matt laughs, incredulous, even though the software does not pick up on the sound. “You mean aside from a willing pawn conned into thinking he’s doing the right thing?”  
  
Only ten seconds for a reply this time.  
  
 _I’m actually flattered you think I’m that despicable._  
  
“You’re not helping your case, Mr. Wesley.”  
  
 _You think I’m using you for my own purposes?_  
  
“Are you not?”  
  
 _I like to think we share a common interest._  
  
“I am still not convinced of that.”  
  
Wesley, true to his profession, picked up on what Matt had left unsaid. The reply comes almost instantly.  
  
 _You don’t believe I’m a SHIELD agent._  
  
Would a SHIELD Agent stay to play right-hand man to a man as despicable as Fisk? Would a SHIELD Agent willingly orchestrate the deaths of innocent people? Those things sound more like something HYDRA would do. Even if James Wesley has been telling the truth, Matt cannot pretend that automatically makes him the trustworthy. Perhaps he was a man with good intentions, once upon a time.  
  
Memory, of Elena’s body, cold and broken, emerges unbidden.  
  
“I don’t know what I believe, Wesley.”  
  
The delay lasts longer his time around, and Matt can imagine the gears clicking in the other man’s head as he comes up with some sort of excuse or misdirection.  
  
 _A meeting, then, after I’m free of this place. Ask me whatever you want, and I’ll do my best to answer._   
  
Matt freezes when he hears the words, and plays them a second time, trying to make sense of the proposal. Honesty? Is that what Wesley is trying to offer him? Then he must be confident he can change Matt’s mind. Even knowing as little of James Wesley as he does, Matt knows the man never takes uncalculated risks.  
  
Yet despite his suspicion, despite his frustration, the feeling that overwhelms him is relief.   
  
“I thought you weren’t asking for my trust?” Matt replies, remembering their conversation from two weeks ago. But there’s no barb or fire in his tone.   
  
Perhaps this time, Matt will finally get a straight answer out of him.  
  
 _I now recognize I want it after all._  
  
“And you always get what you want?”  
  
 _No, Matthew, I don’t. But it doesn’t mean I won’t try._  
  
Matt sighs.  
  
“Let me know when you get released.”  
  
 _I’ll get in touch. I suppose I don’t have to remind you to delete these messages?_  
  
“I’ll remember.”  
  
 _Good. Also, one more thing. You may be interested in a man named Oliver Marks. He’s currently at the Riverview Hotel, Room 503. Of course, only at your own discretion._  
  
Listening to the message, Matt’s mouth falls open. After that entire conversation about trust, about using him, the man sets up more bait. As though he thinks Matt can really ignore a tip like this, that Matt doesn’t know Wesley has sent him someone he will undoubtedly attempt to take out.  
  
He thinks he should be angry, but the fact that James Wesley would pull a stunt like this is so unsurprising it almost feels endearing.  
  
And there is one word he’d never thought he’d use in any thought related to Fisk’s right hand man.  
  
“Go to sleep, Mr. Wesley,” Matt says, his chest churning with annoyance.  
  
 _Goodnight, Matthew._  
  
Leaning against Foggy’s desk, Matthew lets out a long breath. Exhaustion seems to be a permanent state in his new life. Outside, he clock beeps. It’s 2p.m.


	7. Chapter 7

Honesty isn’t something Wesley is used to. His job, in fact, his entire existence for the past few years, has depended on his skill in the art of duplicity and subterfuge. The idea of telling the truth to someone, of willingly handing another person the power to destroy him, sets him on edge. And tonight he is staking his life, and not the life of James Wesley, the Kingpin’s right hand man, but that of the man he had kept buried, his true identity.

The risk is enormous, but it is necessary. If he is ever going to convince Matthew Murdock to trust him he has to respond in kind. Watching Murdock squirm may have been entertaining once upon a time, but the chore of having to justify his behavior at every turn is becoming exhausting. If they’re going to see through the mission of taking down Fisk’s empire, Murdock’s trust is something Wesley needs. They have to work together, focus their efforts on Fisk, and not on their constant suspicion of one another.

When Murdock steps into Wesley’s apartment, he regards the space with a cautious silence. The vigilante, dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, cocks his head as he enters the hallway, as though to capture and process every new sound and scent he senses.

No sarcastic comments or thinly veiled jabs at his décor, Wesley thinks, feeling slightly more optimistic about the night. It’s a strangely adorable sight, Murdock’s face scrunched in concentration, clutching his cane in front of him like a shield. Wesley’s gaze travels along the lines of his body, pictures the tight planes of muscle hidden beneath the fabric of his clothing.

In another life, perhaps.

Wesley steps forward to close the door, his body filled with nervous energy his recovering body can’t quite keep up with. “Living room is this way,” Wesley says, reaching out tentatively to nudge Murdock in the right direction.

The man tenses at the contact, and Wesley makes no comment, leading the way as though nothing had happened. Then, footsteps sound behind him as Murdock begins to follow.

From their last face-to-face meeting in the hospital, it had taken another week before Wesley was finally released. Fisk was there to see him on the day, offering both his company and assistance. Wesley had exited his room on crutches after a humiliating fight for the privilege (he did not need a wheelchair, no matter how much Francis had insisted). He did accept Fisk’s offer for physical support, and moved through the hospital with one arm in a sling and the other one clinging desperately to his employer. Throughout the entire process, Francis trailed anxiously behind him.

Just as he’d feigned a damaged memory, he’d played up his weakness that day, needing Fisk to buy into his image of a traumatized civilian. He’d fallen onto his bed when he went to sit down, placating Fisk with reassurances that he will be okay on his own as a grim-faced Francis ran back and forth, setting up every comfort Wesley may need.

It took an enormous amount of insistence before Wesley had convinced both Fisk and Francis that it would be safe to leave him on his own, complete with promises to check in regularly and call if he needed any assistance. Then, he had needed another two days to work up the strength and mental energy to make the call.

“Pizza?” Murdock comments as they walk through the apartment, and Wesley half turns.

“Is that undesirable?” he asks. “I can order us something else.”

Dinner had been the agreement. Wesley can’t explain not being in his apartment, and a simple social gathering would be the easiest to justify if there ever is the need.

“No,” Murdock replies, “I just… expected something different.”

Wesley smiles to himself, something more upscale than takeaway, perhaps? “Verci’s is known for serving some of the best pizza in Manhattan, Mr. Murdock. I’m sure you’ll find it satisfactory.”

Wesley’s home is, as appropriate to his image, a penthouse in the Upper West Side, fitted out with a minimalist modern design. It comes with a spectacular view that has impressed many visitors. It's also something that, Wesley recognizes, Murdock won’t be able to appreciate.

Yet when they approach the tall floor to ceiling windows, Murdock slows, and then stops, his face pointed at the glass.

Wesley also slows, stopping when he sees his guest no longer has any intention to follow.

“Is something wrong?” he asks, there’s an expression of bewilderment on Murdock’s face, something Wesley would only have expected from his sighted guests.

“It’s… quiet up here,” Murdock murmurs, and Wesley isn’t quite sure if it’s really awe that he hears.

Wesley pauses, listening. So many floors up, the sounds of the city – honking car horns, street chatter, the rush of traffic – are almost completely muted, held at bay by distance and a thick wall of bulletproof glass. All Wesley hears is a pale rushing sound, so faint it feels imagined.

“Yes,” he says eventually, his voice low, “I suppose it is.”

It’s another minute before Murdock is finally pulled from his reverie, and Wesley reconsiders the impact the lack of sound has on the man in from of him as they settle onto the couch. Perhaps, growing up in the middle of Manhattan Island, he had never experienced anything so close to an absence of sound.

Not since before he was blinded, and his senses greatly enhanced.

“I hope you don’t mind using your hands,” Wesley says, opening the two boxes in front of Murdock. Though he had ordered pizza, the ingredients were still, true to his style, gourmet, with juicy Mongolian lamb, fresh ingredients, and home made sauces. Why hold onto your ill-gotten gains when you can spend it on your quality of life?

He hands Murdock a plate, which is hesitantly accepted, and they settle down to eat. Murdock studies his slice of pizza for a moment, before taking a careful bite. By the third mouthful, he is all but devouring the food.

For a moment, they eat in silence, avoiding, for the moment, the real reason for heir meeting. It’s been three weeks, Wesley thinks, since the first time they were in a similar situation.

“I don’t suppose you ate the food I left you, the first time,” he remarks, curiosity getting the better of him.

Murdock pauses, freezing again like a wary deer. “I… did,” he admits with a little reluctance. “I was too hungry to resist.”

Wesley smiles as he takes his next bite, pleased.

“Thank you,” Murdock continues, and Wesley nods.

“I have another name you might be interested in,” Wesley says in between bites. “Claudia Monte, human trafficker, a prospective business partner for Fisk. She’s been kidnapping children and young women all over Manhattan.”

For the past week, Wesley had also been supplying the locations and identities of criminals and suspect individuals to Murdock. Rapists and murderers – people Murdock would have enjoyed bringing to ‘justice’. Each time, he’d allowed Murdock to discover on his own what those people had done to deserve punishment. Now, Wesley completes the profile for the first time.

Murdock pauses, then goes back to eating. “I’ll look into it.”

Silence stretches between them again, and Wesley stares out the window at the city as he chews on his food. When the pizza boxes are nearing empty, it’s Murdock who puts down his plate first, and speaks.

“You wanted to talk?”

And the man wastes no time getting straight to the point, Wesley thinks. He’s terrible at that sort of thing. Patience.

“I do,” Wesley replies, putting down his own plate and wiping his fingers with a napkin. He thinks about the power he about to hand to Murdock. “You have doubts, about me, about our arrangement.”

The promise of honesty is a blank check and an olive branch, and Wesley is uncertain as to what Murdock expects from him, if the vigilante will appreciate or even believe what Wesley has to say.

But they’ve gotten this far. Wesley might as well toss himself well and truly over the edge.

Matt sighs, a harsh, angry sound that reveals the full extent of his frustration. “That’s one way to put it.”

Wesley leans back on the sofa, waiting for Matt to make the next move. Perhaps using the term arrangement was a bad idea, but old habits die hard.

“What am I to you?”

Wesley blinks. Murdock’s question sounds like the opening to a couples’ argument. By the way the other man winces he seems to realize too.

“I mean, what is your plan? Not with the Chinese, but with Fisk. You say you want to take him out, that you want to dismantle his criminal empire, but you’re the one who helped him build it, are you not? Send the information you have to the FBI and you can lock him away for life. And for that matter, you’re claiming to be ex-SHIELD, but what does SHIELD want with Fisk? Why would an agency that is supposed to protect people prop up a criminal who is destroying thousands of lives? And if your intentions are as good as you like to claim, why are you staying in your position? SHIELD went down over a year ago. You can’t tell me you couldn’t have figured out an escape strategy in that time, with the resources you have at your disposal.”

Murdock’s breathing is harsh when he finishes, and he sags a little in his seat. Wesley watches, taken aback. These questions must have weighed on him from day one. All at once, the reasons for Murdock’s suspicion and belligerence are thrown into sharp relief.

“That’s a lot of questions,” Wesley remarks, trying to pick apart the rant and find all the questions he has to answer.

“Because you haven’t given me any answers,” Murdock replies, resentment clear in his voice.

The accusation hangs in the air, and Wesley nods once, conceding the point.

“I… can admit I haven’t been forthcoming,” Wesley says. To be precise, he had forgotten the importance of trust, he necessity of it. Intimidation and manipulation had been his weapon of choice for far too long, and it was the same approach he used with Murdock even when trying to convince him he was an ally.

But those tactics belong to the villains, to the cheats and criminals, those who Murdock’s instinct is to put down.

“If you expect me to trust you,” Murdock says, “you will need to explain yourself.”

Wesley takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. It hurt to remember the truth, his past, his entire identity, now irretrievably lost. But so what? He had to confront it, sooner or later, dig out that part him he had buried so deep and so deliberately.

“Have you ever heard of ‘The Hand’?” Wesley says, his voice low.

“What?”

“From my briefing I was told… uh…” Wesley chuckles, it is so ridiculous, yet part of this world they live in. “They’re a secret criminal order of… I guess you’d call them ninjas.”

His confession is greeted with silence, and Wesley wonders if Matt is remembering his own encounter with Nobu.

“They’re an elusive organization, highly dangerous, and, not unlike Hydra, they covet power above all else. As you’ve probably guessed, Nobu was one of their members.”

Perhaps the memory would help Murdock digest Wesley’s words as fact, and not a far-fetched fairy tale.

“And your mission had something to do with his… order of ninjas?”

Wesley glances at Matt, to find him looking confused, but not incredulous.

“SHEILD had received intelligence that an American named Wilson Fisk had somehow made a connection with this organization. Reports were that the Japanese were actively supporting him in his move to a position of power within the New York underworld. The idea had been for me to go undercover and gain his trust, feeding back anything I possibly could about the Hand and their intentions in the country. SHIELD had hoped that the intelligence I gathered may lead them in the direction of the Hand’s mysterious high ranking members.”

“And how did that go for you?”

He’s still alive, for whatever that’s worth. Wesley’s lips twitch upward. “Not too poorly, at least at first. I provided the names and locations of contacts, bases of operation, clues the intelligence analysts would have pieced together with information fed back from others in the field. In my line of work you learn to be happy with small victories. Fisk is… smart, and private. Even three years later he won’t tell me anything more about them than that they’re ‘a necessary evil’.”

Remembering those times dredges up every discomforting thought he’d deliberately left forgotten. Things had been so much simpler than, when he had a firm ideology to stand behind, a hand to steer him if he ever veered off the beaten track. Back then, James Wesley was just another cover, a mask, falsehoods made up to protect the righteous man beneath.

Now, he barely remembers that other life. He is a tiny vessel left adrift, struggling to stay afloat as he is buffeted on all sides by forces that hope to drag him under. The convictions that had supported him like study, wooden planks of the ship are now almost rotted through, and it will only be a matter of the time before he willingly hurls himself into the sea.

And Matthew Murdock is perhaps his last chance to save what’s left of himself.

Had the members of his old team survived? And if they did, had they ever spared a thought for him? For those they’d abandoned in the field to almost certain death? Wesley had never entertained the hope of retirement, or of a white picket fence and 2.5 children. People like him are fated for violent ends, and a fast, clean death is only rewarded to the luckiest few.

But it would have been too easy if he’d simply died at the end of Karen Page’s stolen gun.

Exhaustion weighs both his limbs and his heart. Wesley stares out the window, and says nothing more. He lets Murdock process each of his revelations, weigh and assess each word and decide if he finds them satisfactory. The city is a pretty sight at night, each pocket of light a window into someone else’s existence. As much as he hates this city, as much as he hates his situation, Wesley can’t deny it’s nice to look at, sometimes.

-

Wesley’s words make sense to Matt, and he doesn’t know if he’s more angry or relieved for the fact.

Matt hadn’t known what to expect when he had walked through Wesley’s door earlier that evening. Answers, yes, but now that he has them, he doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

Wesley’s heartbeat had been fast, but steady throughout his entire confession. Not a single hint of deception, and Matt finds himself also inclined to believe Wesley’s story. All Wesley had done is confirm everything he's already said. Yet the ideas of SHIELD, of some mystical organization named ‘the Hand’, still feels as though it belongs in another world. In that world, good and evil has distinct lines, and heroes like the Avengers always saved the day. Even if Matt buys into Wesley's words, that he really is – had been - someone with good intentions, it doesn’t change the crimes that the man has committed, and continues to commit every day.

“And then SHIELD collapsed?” Matt prompts, hoping to get more out of the man in front of him, needing more reasons to justify this… whatever this is… that is happening between them.

Wesley smiles again, and when he speaks, there’s an undertone of bitterness in his voice.

“Yes, it did. I wiped away any mention of my mission and identity from the public record at first opportunity. And… I’ve been here ever since, with no orders, and no extraction plan.”

“Why don’t you leave?” The question had been on Matt’s mind since day one. Wesley’s original answer had played with the idea of incarceration, but both of them know that it is not the only possible outcome. “Send the evidence to the Feds, get a new identity and go to Rio. You have the resources, you have the opportunity.”

Of every one of Wesley’s outlandish claims, this has been one thing Matt had not been able to reconcile. Why would Wesley stay in this position, when he has such a clear way out? The only answers that Matt can come up with are not ones that paint the man in any positive light. They say power corrupts, and Matt imagines even an ex-SHIELD agent would be no exception, no matter what lies they choose to tell themselves.

Wesley doesn’t answer right away, and Matt’s mind supplies him with condemnations, thinks that he’s caught the man out in something he cannot explain or justify.

“I couldn’t leave,” Wesley says softly, and his heartbeat tells Matt he believes it.

“What are you talking about?”

“Where I am right now, I can exert influence,” Wesley says, his voice picking up volume and speed as he continues, “I can control the way Fisk handles his responsibilities, I can implement strategies that minimize collateral damage, impose discipline on the streets to ensure innocent lives are kept out of danger. I can even tip off the police, tip off people like you, if the situation demands it. But if I leave, then there is no accounting for the person will fill my spot. And they are unlikely to have the same standards that I do.”

“What, so you see yourself as some sort of double agent? New York City’s secret guardian? You rob and murder innocent people!”

“I make threats, Murdock, it usually gets Fisk the things he wants.”

“And the times it doesn’t?” Matt answers, furious, incredulous that someone can be so misguided in their beliefs. “Do you send out thugs to murder innocent old ladies and tell yourself that it’s Fisk’s responsibility and not your own?”

“I don’t claim to be a moral man, Mr. Murdock, but I am a practical one. So no, I will not risk disobedience and my own life to save one life when by staying in my position I can continue saving dozens. For every life we have taken, I assure you that I have solved a dozen similar problems with everyone walking away. I do not claim to be guiltless for those deaths, Mr. Murdock, but I am only one man, and my power is not limitless.”

No, Wesley will not get away that easily. “You can give evidence to put Fisk and his cronies in prison, and there wouldn’t be anyone left to-“

“Do you truly, honestly believe that?” Wesley snaps, incredulous.

“I…” Matt falters, surprised by the ferocity of Wesley’s reaction.

“Do you know how many rivals we’re currently keeping at bay? Powerful people who would not hesitate to step in snap up Fisk’s territory and his contracts if we showed weakness? Drugs, trafficking, prostitution, it is the demand, the money that keeps these markets alive, poverty and systemic injustice that forces people onto these paths. Do you honestly think that there won’t be someone else taking Fisk’s place in a heartbeat?”

“It doesn’t mean Fisk should be allowed to continue, what he’s doing is wrong, and I would fight anyone else who tries to take his place.”

“And you would die, Mr. Murdock,” Wesley returns, voice cold. “How many times have you come close to that already? Fighting the Russians, fighting Nobu? The people you are trying to defeat don’t play by your rules of honor and justice. You cannot tell me you don’t understand that.”

“So what then?” Matt yells. “We let him keep hurting innocent people? Let him go on destroying lives with drugs and kidnapping?

For some reason, his reaction makes Wesley’s breathing slow.

“We take him down, but with calculated attacks,“ Wesley says, his words measured, slipping too easily back into a mask control. “Take him down in one dramatic gesture and all that will be left is blood. There are partners, lieutenants, people in Fisk's employ who are just as capable as I am and far better positioned to cover their involvement. The police will miss them. You know that. And you know what happens next? These sharks will tear each other apart until someone ruthless enough emerges to take that vacant throne.”

Wesley’s heart is racing within his chest in a staccato beat. There’s something dark in his voice, like grief, like drowning, like the monster in the night. This is the real Wesley, Matt realizes with sudden clarity. A man so used to walking among vampires he’s chosen to take the darkness into his own heart to survive, so broken and twisted by his own experience that he cannot see any solution to his problems but cold, measured, violence.

In that moment Matthew sees himself, reflected in Wesley’s words of icy intent, of stubborn determination.

‘The lone man,’ Fisk had said. ‘Who thinks he can make a difference. That’s what makes you dangerous.’

“But if we take out those in the middle first,” Wesley continues, his voice taking a soft, almost sensuous timbre, each word punctuated with confidence. “If we take apart Fisk’s support structure, then there will be no one of any consequence left in the aftermath. Then, we might have a chance at lasting peace.”

And his words make sense, Matt thinks, furious, helpless. He had begun his crusade with little more than frustration, anger and the determination to do the right thing. Yet that line between what is right and wrong is becoming more blurred with each day that passes. Wesley’s words wrap around his consciousness, a snake’s whisper that tells him yes, yes this is what he’s been looking for, this is better thing to do, the right choice.

“What about the people who get in the crossfire? Karen Page? Elena Cardenas? The innocent people caught in those explosions? What are their lives worth to you?”

Wesley’s breath stutters, and the silence that follows tells Matt a tale of shame.

“Collateral damage,” Wesley replies, his voice quiet. “You should understand that.”

Matt opens his mouth to retort, but then he grasps Wesley’s meaning.

“The people I’ve hurt are criminals, killers.”

“And you think those criminals and killers don’t deserve a right to a fair hearing, to due process?” Wesley says, in a soft murmur. “That they’re somehow less than human because of the choices they’ve made, the people they’ve hurt? Do you think that the men you’ve thrown from rooftops, put into comas, left crippled for life, don’t have families? Don’t have children? Loved ones they’d die to protect?”

Wesley’s tone is careful, gentle, yet his words are as sharp as knives, and they slide straight through Matt’s defenses, drawing blood. Matt falls silent, reeling from his unveiled accusations.

“You have to forgive me, Mr. Murdock, if I find your stance hypocritical.”

Matt takes a heaving breath, his thoughts fragments he scrambles to pieces together. He’s shaking again.

“They are criminals,” Matt says, finding a lifeline in an argument and holding onto it for dear life, “like you said, these people don’t play by the rules, they understand the stakes.”

“And where do you place yourself, Mr. Murdock, in that paradigm?”

Wesley doesn’t try to justify himself, and Matt wonders if this counts as a victory.

“I am not called the Saint of Hell’s Kitchen.”

Wesley’s lips curve with a smirk. “So you mingle with those you detest, embrace their tactics, and use it against them.”

Matt bears his teeth, knowing exactly what Wesley is trying to do.

“Unlike you, I don’t benefit from my crimes.”

“So you don’t feel any sort of rush, each time you emerge victorious? Don’t feel that reassuring warmth of having rid the world of one more villain each time you put down a criminal? Relief and affirmation when a victim thanks you for your timely intervention?”

Matt grits his teeth, “I also feel guilt for those things.”

“You think I don’t?” Wesley admits the fact with such ease it takes Matt by surprise.

“I can’t say I don’t have my doubts,” Matt says, realizing that his is no a battle he can win. “But I’m not going to help you hurt innocent people, Wesley.”

“I’m not asking you to, Matthew,” Wesley says with a soft exhale. “We have a common cause, and by doing what you’ve always done – taking out criminals – we can work together to take down Fisk.”

“I won’t step back and do nothing if you do anything like Elena, like those bombings again,” Matt says, stubbornly holding his ground, onto the center of his convictions, the principle he had held from the start.

“And you don’t have to, ” Wesley replies, taking that one step back, acknowledging that Matt’s ideology of is worth. “But I need you to trust me, Matthew. A partnership. It’s all I ask.”

Matt waits, but all the riling, raucous parts inside of him have fallen silent.

“Fine.”

The word falls, and Wesley lets out a breath. Matt focuses on his breathing, on holding onto this calm, accepting this strange new arrangement. Blackmail is not a word he can hold onto anymore, not knowing what Wesley has told him, not when he has been given this new power to destroy the man.

Then this is a partnership, a temporary truce that has led to the creation of an alliance. He sinks a little deeper into he couch, hearing the subtle squeak of leather as Wesley too, relaxes in his seat.

Matt is exhausted, yet it feels like a heavy weight has been removed from his shoulders, and for the first time in weeks, he feels like he can breathe.

“Don’t do this alone anymore, Matt.”

Silence stretches between them, this time, it is companionable. The only thing that stands out in the tranquil night is the steady beat of Wesley’s heart. The scent of pizza sauce and grease still lingers in the air, mingling strangely with something distinctly Wesley beyond the cinnamon and sandalwood of his cologne – something sharp, crisp, and cold as a knife’s edge.

“Tell me something, Wesley,” Matt says.

Wesley’s head turns toward him. “What is it?”

“Why me?”

Wesley hesitates, and his Matt hangs onto he moment, the calm before yet another revelation.

Footsteps sound outside the front door. There are three soft knocks, punctuated with the sound of a turning key.

-

There are two people beside himself with keys to his apartment. The first is Fisk, who would be with Vanessa at this hour, the second-

“Mr. Wesley?”

Francis’s voice echoes from the entrance, and Wesley curses internally at the intrusion.

It seems he can’t attempt anything when it comes to Matthew Murdock without someone walking in at the wrong moment.

**Author's Note:**

> So it appears you can't actually add chapters to a fic without AO3 automatically posting it for you. If you came in early, made it this far and are wondering why the story started so abruptly, that's because, well, the first chapter might have been missing.


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